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CilEXRIGHT DEPOSm 



DOUBTERS 
AND THEIR DOUBTS 



BY 
CHARLES DAVID DARLING, Ph.D. 




BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 

1916 






JAN -2 iS17 



copybight, 1916 
Sherman, French 6* Company 



©Ci.A453442 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I A Plea for the Honest Doubter . 1 



II Is There a God? 

Ill What Are the Scriptures? . 

IV Is Christ the Son of God? 

V The Reality op Christianity 

VI Has God Revealed Himself to Man 

VII The Testimony of the Christian 

VIII Is the Bible the Word of God? . 



11 
24 
40 
54 

? 65 
80 
91 



IX The Living Word and Life Eternal 103 



CHAPTER I 
A PLEA FOR THE HONEST DOUBTER 

" Prove all things: hold fast that which is good." 
I. THREE DISTINGUISHING MARKS OF LIFE 

The three distinguishing marks of life are, 
growth, organization, and reproduction. 
Where they are not found, Hfe is not found. 
If a man's body were to cease completely all the 
processes that make for the nourishment, the 
sustenance, the replacement, and the vitalising 
of itself, — all assimilation, secretion and elimi- 
nation — he would be dead in a few hours. 
When the body ceases seeking new sources of 
supply, when it ceases assimilation, it soon 
ceases doing anything. 

But this is also true of the psychic life, of the 
mind. When the mind ceases to desire to know, 
it ceases to grow. When men and women 
cease to ask questions, they cease to make prog- 
ress. They are like coin secreted in a stock- 
ing. It earns nothing; they learn nothing. 
Normal minds are seeking minds. The great- 



2 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

est thing in life is desire. When the plant 
ceases to desire and to assimilate sunshine it 
dies. When life no longer contains any desire, 
we want to quit. The search for the truth of 
things is the fuel that feeds the flame of life. 
When fresh supplies are no longer added, the 
embers smoulder beneath the ashes. And such 
do men become who have ceased to seek and 
ceased to grow. The ashes of the grave are 
gathering over them. Age is no bar to growth. 
It is often an excuse for indolence. It should 
be an incentive to eff*ort. For its resources are 
rich in experience, and should be replete with 
wisdom; and the call of eternity is echoing in 
the chambers of the soul. 

The refusal to search, to seek, to inquire, to. 
study, to learn, is, then, no indication of supe- 
riority, — rather is it a mark of inferiority. 
What do we think of the boy who wants to quit 
school? What do we think of the youth who 
wantonly turns his back upon college? What 
is our estimate of the man who does not desire 
to read? Wherever we find a force in the world 
that is mighty in its influences upon humanity, 
there we are met with a challenge to investigate, 
to discover, to learn, to inquire. And the 
mark of real superiority in mentality is the 
acceptance of the challenge. 



THE HONEST DOUBTER 3 

II. TRUTH ALWAYS THE GAINER BY 
INVESTIGATION 

Truth will always bear the light. Nothing 
is more helpful than finding the facts. And 
next to this nothing is more desirable than the 
dethronement of error. We can never find the 
truth except to our enrichment. We can never 
overthrow error except to our betterment. No 
truth can possibly be harmed by investigation. 
What we want, what we must have, is the truth 
of things. And for this reason : all truth leads 
to God ; all error hides God. If God is at the 
centre of things, then truth uncovers Him. If 
God is at the heart of things, then error ob- 
scures Him. And when we find the facts, we- 
find Him. This is the secret every man should 
strive to know. 

" Truth is large. Our aspiration 
Scarce embraces half we be; 
Shame to stand in His Creation, 
And doubt Truth's sufficiency: 
To think God's song unexcelling, 
The poor tales of our own telling." 

Man has no greater friend than honest in- 
quiry. All science is an effort to uncover the 
works of God. All true philosophy is an effort 
to find the ways of God. And the more we 
know of the works of God, and the better we 
are able to interpret the ways of God, the better 
it is for us. 



4 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

Now the honest doubter is the man who does 
not know, but who wants to know. And to this 
man Christianity comes with her invitation: 
" If any man will do His will, he shall know of 
the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether 
it be of men." And if we are honest, it is im- 
possible for us to ignore this invitation; it is 
impossible for us to avoid this challenge. For 
Christianity asserts itself to be the most vital 
truth that man can know. " This is life 
eternal that they might know thee, the only 
true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast 
sent." If truth is desirable, then the Founder 
of Christianity challenges the truth-seeker, for 
He makes this announcement of Himself : " I 
am the Truth." This certainly is not an ap- 
peal to credulity. It is a challenge to knowl- 
edge. And this again is His pronouncement: 
" Which of you convinceth me of sin.^ " Christ 
calls for investigation. Christianity calls for 
inquiry. It demands that it be put to the 
proof. It asks for the light. " Come now, 
and let us reason together." This is its re- 
quest. Let us take the matter up as rational 
creatures. Let us enter the lists as moral 
beings capable of acting upon our convictions. 

III. CHRISTIANITY ONE OF THE MIGHTY 
FORCES OF THE WORLD 

First and foremost among the phases of 
Christianity which call for investigation by the 



THE HONEST DOUBTER 5 

honest doubter is this : Christianity is today, 
and for a long time has been, one of the mighty 
forces in the world. For eighteen hundred 
years it has been turning things upside down. 
It has crumbled empires and leveled thrones ; 
it is revolutionary ; it has made nations ; it has 
moulded men by millions. Christianity is a 
mighty force. Christianity is a tremendous 
fact. Read the history of the ruling nations 
of the world today, and you read the history 
of Christianity. For it has been, and is, one 
of the strongest agencies at work among them. 
It is impossible to write the history of the 
United States and not write the history of 
Washington and the Revolutionary War. And 
it is impossible to write the history of civiliza- 
tion and not write the history of Christianity. 
If you would be an intelligent student of his- 
tory, or philosophy, or of science, or of soci- 
ology, you must reckon with Christianity, you 
must know Christianity. For Christianity has 
had mightily to do with the making of the 
world. 

IV. CHRISTIANITY DIVINE 

Again, the honest doubter is met by this: 
Christianity claims to be divine. It claims to 
come from God, to be the message of Deity to 
humanity. This is its dictum : " Thus saith 
Jehovah of Hosts." " Which of you con- 



6 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

vinceth me of sin ? " " To the law and to the 
testimony." Christianity claims to come from 
God. Christianity says of its laws, its doc- 
trine, its kingdom, its life, its founders, that 
they are divine. Christ called for acceptance 
of himself as the Son of God on the ground that 
his words were the words of God ; that his works 
were the works of God; that if this were not 
true, he was an imposter. And he called for 
investigation of his claim. And this is the 
matter that meets us today ; this is the thing we 
want to know. Is Christianity from God? 
Was this man Jesus a worker of superhuman 
works? Did He rise from the dead? There 
is no question as to the historicity of Christian- 
ity. The question is, is Christianity super- 
natural? For we have passed the period when 
men say: ''There is no God." Science and 
Scripture alike today class the men who so say 
with " the fool." For the Scriptures proceed, 
from Genesis to Revelation, upon the founda- 
tion that they are God's message to men. And 
more, the center round which the Scriptures 
revolve is the Christ. They begin with Him, 
and end with Him. And their claim is : He 
is God manifest in the flesh. And more, this 
Christ himself explicitly makes the claim again 
and again that He is the Son of God ; that His 
character is divine; that His mission is of the 
Almighty. He claims divine authority, is 



THE HONEST DOUBTER 7 

clothed with divine power, works superhuman 
works, claims to be the Saviour of men, asserts 
absolute control of the human race, claims that 
He has come to give men divine life, eternal 
life, and claims that the destinies of men 
forever depend upon their relationships to 
Him. 

Are these things so? Every man should 
know. Every honest doubter wants to know. 
There is only one honest attitude. Investigate 
the evidences. 

V. CHRISTIANITY OF LIVING, PERSONAL 
MOMENT TO EVERY MAN 

Again, the honest doubter is met by this: 
Christianity claims to be of living, personal 
moment to every man. Boldly, without quali- 
fication, it makes its great promise of eternal 
life to every man who wants it. " Whosoever 
will may come." " Him who cometh unto me 
I will in no wise cast out." This is a personal 
matter. " We must all stand before the judg- 
ment seat of Christ." If we are in earnest, our 
attention is arrested here. We will not pass 
this by ; to do so would be folly. We must in- 
vestigate, for we cannot afford to neglect. 
Honest doubt seeks ever its own dismissal. Let 
us find the facts. Let us know these things 
whether they be of God. Let us define and de- 
termine our relationship to claims which are so 



8 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

vital and so personal. This is the attitude of 
the honest mind. " To the law and to the testi- 
mony." How shall we begm? How shall we 
deal with our doubt? 

1. Be in earnest. Try conclusions. Ac- 
cept evidences. Meet issues. Act upon re- 
sults. Seek first things first. Let Jonah and 
his whale alone until you have found the God 
who made both Jonah and the fish. Put trifling 
aside. The search for God calls for the best 
intent of your being. No trifler succeeds even 
in temporal things. And even there the man 
most in earnest often fails. But no earnest, 
seeking spirit was ever denied at the throne of 
the Father. 

2. Be not afraid. In the front rank of the 
scientists of the modern world stands Lord 
Kelvin. Hear him : " If you think strongly 
enough, you will be forced by science to the be- 
lief in God." " Science positively affirms cre- 
ative power." Be not afraid. For every fact 
you find in the universe will be a foot-print of 
God. Then find your facts fearlessly ; but face 
them honestly. For the God of revelation 
is the God of nature. And all the mysteries 
and difficulties that perplex and distress us are 
not confined to the natural sphere. They are 
found in the spiritual as well. But there is 
this in which the two are identical. In nature, 
and in revelation, God in his work, and God in 



THE HONEST DOUBTER 9 

his Word, only facts are found. There is no 
falsehood; and there is no folly. 

3. Begin at the bottom. Faith begins by 
giving up belief in Deity as a mere abstraction. 
Many people believe in God as they believe in 
the North pole. It is a possible something, lo- 
cated somewhere. And when they find it, it 
isn't there. That is the kind of belief about 
Deity that must be given up. In its stead must 
come a belief in " The Living God," who is 
" The Rewarder of them that seek Him." As 
the mariner believes in the Polar star not only 
because he sees it, but because he guides his 
course by it and beholds the whole heaven re- 
volving about it, so is the living faith of this 
Christian and his God. This is the beginning. 
And what is the ending.? It is this: "God 
hath made this same Jesus whom ye crucified 
both Lord and Christ." For this is the Scrip- 
tures ; this is the law ; this is the testimony ; 
this is the prophets; and this is the revelation: 
" Thou art the Christ, the son of the Living 
God " ; " The Son of God is come " ; " God has 
spoken to us in his Son." 

4. Accept the evidence. This is not a 
plea for the inspiration of the Scriptures. It 
is a matter of accepting the facts about the 
Christ, and the genuineness of the records is 
admitted. Their historicity is unimpeachable. 
Their authenticity is guaranteed by the char- 



10 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

acter of the men who wrote them. And what is 
the record? It is this and none other: " The 
Son of God is come." Judgment will follow. 
Are you an honest doubter? If so, you face 
this issue : " God hath sent his Son into the 
world." 



CHAPTER II 
IS THERE A GOD? 

" The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the 
Father, He hath declared Him." 

I. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION 

This is the profoundest problem that can lay 
hold of the human mind. Is there a supreme, 
personal intelligence.^ Is there a Creator who 
upholds and rules the universe.^ Is He a 
Father, gracious and merciful.? Is the re- 
demption of mankind accomplished through 
Him, and through none other.? This question 
lies at the very foundation of all man's religious 
beliefs. Upon our answer to this depends our 
responsibility and our duty, our sin and our 
salvation, our immortality and our future 
estate. The question of a revelation, an in- 
carnation, and a resurrection is dependent upon 
our answer to this question. 

II. THE FIRST LINE OF APPROACH 

There are three lines of approach. The first 
of these is intuition. The consciousness of God 
is race-wide. The belief in God is universal. 
There are no natural atheists. All are born 

11 



12 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

with an indwelling sense of God. All men be- 
lieve in the existence of some being or beings 
above them to whom they are responsible, and 
whom it behooves them to propitiate. This be- 
lief is not the result of argument. Most men 
have never faced the question why they believe 
in God. The wide-spread extent of this belief 
is a strong argument in favor of its truth. In 
the darkest night of paganism there are two 
innate convictions: one of these is of a divine 
birth, the other is of a sinful alienation. And 
these two are the causes of the universal unrest 
of the race. 

There is but one way to invalidate this testi- 
mony, and that is to entertain the thought that 
the human race has been unanimous in enter- 
taining a falsehood. This does not mean a mis- 
take in interpretation. This is an entirely dif- 
ferent matter. Such a mistake was the theory 
that the succession of light and darkness was 
caused by the sun going around the earth. The 
mistake was in the attempted interpretation, — 
not in the fact of the succession. If there is 
no succession, then our conciousness carries us 
to a lie. If it does so, then we have no founda- 
tion for any knowledge of any kind. 

Hence the universal race-consciousness of the 
existence of God carries with it the same cred- 
ibility as do all other facts of consciousness. 
And this credibility of the facts presented to us 



IS THERE A GOD? 13 

in consciousness is the foundation of all our 
knowledge. Upon this science builds. Upon 
this philosophy asks for acceptance. 

III. THE SECOND LINE OF APPROACH 

The second line of approach is through the 
reason. By this line of approach we learn to 
know about God. What can we find that will 
teach us about God.'^ There are three things. 

1. The -first is the idea of cause. It lies 
in the nature of our intellect. Where the mind 
finds an effect, the reason postulates a cause. 
We are so constituted that wherever any event 
occurs we are by necessity led to ask the reason 
for it. We necessarily believe that it was due 
to some cause. This is a fact in our mental 
constitution. Proceeding from it we follow two 
lines of thought. 

a. The work that has been wrought. First, 
ourselves. We are here ; we exist. Whence 
came we.^ It is impossible to believe that 
the human race is eternal, because we can- 
not think an endless chain. Our procession of 
thought necessitates a beginning. Hence the 
first man. And he must be either self-existent, 
or there must be a cause for his existence. 
How did he come into being? Take any species 
of animal life. The same reasoning reaches 
the same conclusion. What is the cause of 
their existence,'^ 



14 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

Reasoning necessitates the conclusion of the 
existence of a self-existing First Cause. The 
theory of evolution affords no help. Go back 
to an original ether. It is either in motion or 
at rest. If it is in motion, the motion is a 
change that demands a cause. We cannot con- 
ceive an infinite series of finite causes. Neither 
can we conceive that matter is the originator of 
motion. This is Plato's argument. Since it 
is impossible for the mind to conceive of matter 
originating motion there must be a mind as the 
first cause of motion. 

And to this position, reached by Plato so 
long ago, the new science of our day has at 
last come. Science today confesses that the 
universe had a beginning. As the researches 
of men have gone deeper into the structure of 
the earth, and into the nature of the universe 
about us, all doubt has been removed. Astron- 
omy and geology unite to proclaim that Plato 
was right. And long before both, the sweet 
singer of Israel told the same story : " The 
heavens declare the glory of God, and the firma- 
ment showeth His handiwork.'' 

With the sinking of the evening sun your 
copy of the daily press is left at your door. 
When the dinner hour is over you read it 
through. The next morning you seek the office. 
Finding the manager, you put this question to 
him : " Where did that paper you sent me 



IS THERE A GOD? 15 

last night come from? I found in it about 
everything that had happened in the world 
during the last twenty-four hours. And be- 
sides, I found opinions and interpretations of 
many of the most important things : I found 
announcements of where I might buy nearly 
everything that I and my family would need to 
keep them living for a year. And all this was 
orderly and systematically arranged. How did 
all those things happen to fall together in just 
that way in a single day? " 

He would take you for a lunatic. He would 
beat a retreat before the impossible problem 
of ever driving into your brain the explanation 
of the editor-in-chief and the staff and the 
business management, of the press association 
reaching its lines around the world, of the lino- 
type and the printing press. How did it hap- 
pen? The very suggestion is an intolerable in- 
sult to human intelligence. 

And how much deeper and vaster is the mean- 
ing behind the lines of Addison : 

*' The spacious firmament on high^ 
And all the blue, ethereal sky. 
And spangled heavens, a shining frame, 
Their great Original proclaim.'* 

b. The manner of the morJc. For every- 
where the work shows evidence of design. 
What do we mean by design? We mean the 



16 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

selection of an end to be attained ; the choice of 
a suitable means for its attainment; the appli- 
cation of the means for the accomplishment of 
the proposed end. 

It is not necessary to add, therefore, that 
design is indicative of intelligence, will and 
power. The argument is thus presented by 
Philo : " No work of art is self-made. The 
world is the most perfect work of art. There- 
fore the world was made by a good and most 
perfect author." 

The instances of design are numberless. The 
eye is fitted for seeing; the ear for hearing; 
the lungs for breathing; the teeth for mastica- 
tion; the stomach for digestion; the limbs for 
locomotion; the joints for flexure. And each 
organ is arranged and adjusted with reference 
to every other organ. 

Again, organs common to all are modified to 
suit the necessities of diff^erent species. Birds 
which wade in the water have long legs and 
long necks ; birds which float on the surface have 
webbed feet ; birds which fly have hollow bones. 

Again, there is a correspondence between the 
organs of every animal and the instincts by 
which it is endowed. The bee has an instinct to 
build cells. Its body secretes wax. The spider 
has an instinct to spin webs. Its body is 
furnished with the requisite matter. Organs 
and instinct correspond. 



IS THERE A GOD? 17 

Equally marvelous are the same evidences 
throughout the vegetable kingdom. And this 
more marvelous still ; that the vegetable is fitted 
to supply nourishment to the animal. 

And more marvelous still, the adaptations of 
external nature to minister to the necessities of 
animal and vegetable life. For neither plants 
nor animals could exist without light, air, heat, 
water and soil. Who created the light and the 
heat and the air? And who perfected and ad- 
justed the relationships? And how is it that 
the whole animal and vegetable world has been 
constructed on one comprehensive plan? And 
how is it that the earth has been so evidently 
designed for man? 

And when we turn our thoughts to the uni- 
verse, order and symmetry are seen on a scale 
so vast that the evidence is overwhelming. In 
our own system the planet Neptune swings 
around his majestic orbit without the variation 
of a second in a thousand years. 

But astronomers tell us that they know of 
a hundred million suns. And beside some of 
them, at least, ours is a pigmy. Sirius shines 
with a light equal to two hundred and fifty of 
our suns, and Alcyone shines with a light of 
twelve thousand suns. The nearest of these 
suns is separated from the outer planet of our 
system by twenty-one billions of miles. Besides 
these systems there are others in which suns re- 



18 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

volve around suns, at distances proportioned 
to their magnitude. 

Throughout this vast universe order reigns. 
The variety is endless ; the unity is one ; the 
same laws of gravitation, of light, of heat, 
everywhere prevail. Order is the sure indica- 
tion of mind. Is a book made by a mass of 
type falling together in the form of words and 
sentences and paragraphs and chapters, the 
whole producing an order and a sequence of 
thought ? 

2. The second is our moral nature. This 
manifests itself in our ideas of right and wrong. 
Some actions we say to be right ; others we say 
to be wrong. And this is not because one 
pleases us, and the other displeases us. The 
moral quality of a word or an action we know 
to be something altogether different from the 
feeling of pleasure or displeasure which it oc- 
casions. For we are conscious, when we say of 
a word or an act that it is wrong, of appealing 
to an absolute standard. Olir judgment is 
simply a statement that the word or the act 
lacks conformity to this standard. What is 
that standard? It is found in a perfect moral 
being whose nature constitutes the ground of 
right. 

Again, we are conscious that morality is ob- 
ligatory. We cannot escape this. There are 
some things we ought to do. It is not a ques- 



IS THERE A GOD? 19 

tion of expediency ; it is not a matter of policy. 
There is a chasm wide and deep between these 
two sayings : " Honesty is the best policy," 
and " You must be honest." And the obliga- 
tion of the latter is upon us. Whence comes 
it.f^ Who imposes it? Who lays it upon us? 
Whence is this imperative? Either it proceeds 
from Deity, or our nature is a lie and our con- 
sciousness confesses falsehood. 

3. The third is the Scriptures. We have 
the right to presume that if there is a God any- 
where in the universe, He will not leave us hope- 
lessly in the dark; but that somewhere, some- 
way, He will discover Himself. To say that 
He cannot do this is to negative the idea of 
Deity ; and to say that He will not do this is to 
negative the morality of Deity. If there be 
a living God, He has made Himself known. 
And here is the Book that tells the story. Of 
all the books in the literature of the ages it is 
the only one that claims to have been " written 
by holy men as they were moved by the Spirit 
of God." It opens with the words : " In the 
beginning, God." It affirms that the universe 
had its origin in the creative power of God. It 
affirms that everything is sustained by the 
providence of God. 

Now, a great deal of our knowledge rests 
upon the testimony of others. If the testimony 
of travelers is enough to satisfy us as to the 



20 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

appearance and habits of men in the heart of 
Africa whom we have never seen, the Bible, if 
it is authentic, ought to satisfy as to the exist- 
ence of God. For it is the narrative of His 
dealings with the race. If we do not accept its 
testimony, we might as well burn our books of 
history. 

But what is this book that boldly asserts 
God and his relations with man? For one 
thing it is the source of the law of the civilized 
world. For every just law since Sinai has its 
root in Moses' law. For another thing, it is 
the source of the morality of the civilized world. 
And the world confesses that the moral stand- 
ards of the Bible are right. And shall not such 
a book speak the truth? And what is its word? 
" In the beginning, God." 

Surveying the road we have come, we find 
that we have looked into our consciousness, and 
there we have found the fact that we are con- 
scious of God. Our intuition tells us of God. 

Turning to the reason, we have traveled three 
pathways. The first of these was from the ef- 
fect to the cause; the second was from the de- 
sign to the designer ; the third was from the tes- 
timony of the Scriptures to the reality certified 
there. 

Our intuition gives us a consciousness of God. 
Our reason tells us about God. But there is 
another line of approach, and by this we shall 



IS THERE A GOD? 21 

learn to know God. The difference is deep and 
wide. 



IV. THE THIRD LINE OF APPROACH 

For here we are met by Christ. And this 
is his message : " The only begotten Son, who 
is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared 
Him." " He that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father." Pause for a moment and think upon 
that statement. No other man ever said it. 
None ever dared. Only one man could sa}^ it, 
and He must be the Son of God. But if the 
Son of God said it, shall we dare do otherwise 
than believe Him? Shall we dare deny Him? 
And if we dare not deny Him, we must accept 
Him. And this is his testimony : " God so 
loved the world, that He gave His only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should 
not perish, but have everlasting life." 

What more? Could there be any thing 
more? Is not this the God we want? Is not 
this the God our hearts cry out for? Is not 
this the testimony our ears rejoice to hear? Is 
not this the message our hearts leap forth to 
know ? 

Oh, what an Evangel! The soul of man is 
like a sheep lost on the mountains. And the 
shepherd goes forth, and tarries not through 
the darkness of the night until he finds it. 



22 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

" And there is joy in the presence of the angels 
of God." 

Oh, what a gospel ! This is our salvation : 
a seeking, suffering, travailing, sin-bearing 
God: A Christ, a Saviour, who paused not at 
Gethsemane nor drew back from Calvary if so 
be the world might be reconciled to God. 

Oh, what a salvation ! Deliverance from sin ; 
victory over death; triumph over the grave. 
" And the end, everlasting life." What more 
can desire seek? What more can aspiration 
hope.f^ What more can the soul know? 

Oh, what a price to pay ! For He died that 
we might live. " He was delivered for our of- 
fences, and raised again for our justification." 
One winter night when the snow lay deep and 
winds blew cold, over the hills of the highlands, 
the shepherd missed three lambs from the fold. 
The faithful collie lay stretched by the fire, 
feeding her young. The master opened the 
door upon the bitter night and raised three 
fingers, and said, " Go," and the seeker went 
and one was brought home. Again the master 
opened the door and raised two fingers and 
said, " Go," and the seeker went over the lonely 
hills and another was brought home. Again 
the master opened the door and raised one 
finger, and said, " Go," and again the seeker 
rose and went forth, facing the wintry blast 
and treading the cold snow and searching the 



IS THERE A GOD? 23 

weary wastes until the last one was safe within 
the fold. But when the morning came a cold, 
dead form lay silent and still, stretched beside 
the hearth. But the lambs were safe within 
the fold. 

" For God so loved the world, that He gave 
His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
in Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life." 



CHAPTER III 

WHAT ARE THE SCRIPTURES? 

The word " Bible " is from the Greek word 
" Biblia," meaning a roll or scroll. That was 
the ancient form of a book made from the inner 
bark of the papyrus, or from parchment. 

I. THE WRITING OF THIS BOOK 

In some of its parts it is by far the most 
ancient record that we have ; but nearly twenty 
centuries separate these parts from those writ- 
ten last. And this is matched by the variety of 
the writers. For sovereign and slave, prince 
and peasant, scholar and novice, learned and 
unlearned, contributed to its pages. And this 
again by the conditions under which the writers 
performed their work. Some were rich, some 
were poor, some lived at courts, some lived in 
poverty, some wrote of the present, some of the 
past, some of the limitless future, all going on 
record as to things fundamental between Deity 
and humanity, and the final realities of human 
existence. 

And yet the harmony is one, and the object 
24 



WHAT ARE THE SCRIPTURES? 25 

is one, and the central thought is one, and the 
theme is one, and the central Personage is one, 
and the system of truth and duty found in all 
the pages is one. 

Whence this unity in multiplicity? 

Whence this harmony in variety? 

Whence this consistency in diversity? 

The Bible is itself a miracle, unaccountable 
save as the hand of Deity is seen on its pages. 

II. THE BIBLE AND THE HEBREWS 

Fifteen hundred years before Christ Moses 
wrote the first books. He was the creator of 
the legislation of the Hebrew race. And every 
just law written since his day has its roots in 
the law written by this Hebrew law-giver. The 
Jews assert that he wrote the Pentateuch. 
The scholarship of the world, after keenest re- 
search, is almost unanimous in the same verdict. 
And to this is added the endorsement of Christ, 
for He said : " If ye believe not Moses' writ- 
ings, how shall ye believe my words?" Then 
others wrote — Joshua and Samuel and David 
and Isaiah. Of all these writings the Jews were 
the guardians, and they performed their task 
well. Every word must be pronounced aloud 
by the copyist before it was written ; and before 
writing the name of God he must wash his pen. 
All completed copy must be examined for ap- 
proval or rejection within thirty days. 



26 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

These things are evidence to one fact, — the 
great and scrupulous care exercised by the 
Jews in the preservation of the books they 
held sacred. And this is the more surprising 
when we remember that these same records tell 
the story of their own condemnation by Jehovah 
as a nation for faithlessness and idolatry and 
infidelity and ingratitude. 

The New Testament was written within the 
first century. Three ancient manuscripts are 
in existence: one written in the fifth century, 
now in the British Museum ; one written in the 
fourth century, now in the Vatican at Rome ; 
one in St. Petersburg. Is this good wit- 
ness? Tischendorf says: " No simple work of 
ancient Greek classical literature can command 
three such original witnesses as the Sinaitic, 
Vatican, and Alexandrine manuscripts to the 
integrity and accuracy of its text." 

And this is the result — a book, written while 
fifteen hundred years were multiplying, by every 
kind of author, under every variety of cir- 
cumstance, but its accuracy certified by almost 
infallible proofs, and in our possession across 
the distant reaches of three thousand years. 

III. THE BIBLE AND HISTORY 

The history contained in the Bible is the 
history of time. For it antedates the begin- 
ning of the race, and goes back to the birth of 



WHAT ARE THE SCRIPTURES? 27 

the world. Crossing the centuries, it records 
the creation of man. For a while it tells the 
story of the whole race, then it confines itself 
to the story of the children of Israel, widening 
again to the race in redemption; and then, in 
the far reaches of prophecy, it touches the end 
of things temporal, portrays the final scenes 
of earth, the gathering before the Judge eternal, 
and the issues of destiny. 

Who is sufficient for such themes? Come 
forward, O man, whoever thou mayest be, with 
mind that comprehends the divine thought of 
the centuries and the issues of the generations 
of man, and read the record ere the scenes are 
enacted, and tell the story ere the scroll is 
unrolled. 

IV. THE BIBLE AND PROPHECY 

Firsts prophecies regarding the Jews. Le- 
viticus 26, Deuteronomy 28, the gospel by St. 
Luke 21 : 24, and many passages more, have 
been and are being fulfilled with literal exact- 
ness. 

Second, prophecies regarding the Messiah. 
Isaiah 53, Micah 5 : 2, Daniel 9 : 25-27, passed 
in exact review 1900' years ago as they had been 
written centuries before. 

Third, prophecies regarding cities and king- 
doms. There is a twice-told tale. For you 
may read it first in the sacred Word, and you 



28 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

may read it again in history. The first was 
written centuries before the events described; 
the second was written when the work was done. 
And the record is the same. Go read it on the 
pages of Scripture — and then go read it again 
in the barrenness of Tyre, the desolation of 
Sidon, the decHne and degradation of Egypt, 
the waste of Idumea, the demolition of Babylon, 
the silent plains of Chaldea, the barren wastes 
of Galilee, and the silenced songs of Zion where 
once the Temple crowned Moriah's Mount. 

V. THE BIBLE AND LITERATURE 

Do we want logic ? Read Paul. 

Are we moved by the sublime .^^ The passing 
passages of all literature are found in Isaiah, 
and Job, and Psalms, and Revelation. 

Do we love narrative? None so rich and 
rare and beautiful and simple in its telling as 
the Pentateuch and the gospels. 

Do we like the pithy and the pungent? The 
Proverbs of Solomon easily surpass. 

Voltaire said of the Book of Ruth that as a 
story of filial affection and devotion it has no 
equal anywhere. 

Does our heart leap forth with the spirit of 
the bold and of the impetuous? Follow Peter 
as his spirit takes wing and his thought sweeps 
in the eternities. 

Do the billows of the world's wild passions 



WHAT ARE THE SCRIPTURES? 29 

roar about us, and are our hearts driven by 
tempests of sorrow? We may find a harbor in 
the land-locked seas of trust, and faith, and 
peace where the beloved disciple keeps the com- 
pany of his risen and glorified Redeemer. 

All literature is here: national anthems, war 
ballads, pilgrim songs, history, argument, sim- 
plicity, sublimity, beauty, passion, peace, sor- 
row, song, tears, story, vision — all are 
here. 

In lyric poetry the Hebrew leads the litera- 
ture of the world. Examples range from the 
Songs of Deborah, and Israel's triumph by the 
Red Sea, to the deep spiritual meditations of 
the 139th Psalm. 

O Lord^ thou hast searched me^ and known me. 

Thou knowest my downsitting and mine upris- 
ing; thou understandest my thought afar off. 

Thou searchest out my path and my lying down, 
and art acquainted with all my ways. 

For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, 
O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. 

Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid 
thy hand upon me. 

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is 
high, I cannot attain unto it. 

Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither 
shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up 
into heaven, thou art there: 

If I make nay b?d iji Sh^ol, behold, thou ar^ 
there. 



30 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

If I take the wings of the mornings and dwell 
in the uttermost parts of the sea; 

Even there shall thy hand lead me^ and thy right 
hand shall hold me. 

If I say^ Surely the darkness shall overwhelm 
me, and the light about me shall be night; 

Even the darkness hideth not from thee, 

But the night shineth as the day: 

The darkness and the light are both alike to 
thee. 

How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, 
O God ! 

How great is the sum of them! 

If I should count them, they are more in number 
than the sand: 

When I awake, I am still with thee. 

Match the story of Joseph for poetic justice; 
the story of David and Saul for adventure ; the 
story of Ruth for exquisite beauty; the book 
of Esther for exciting fiction. 

The philosophy of a whole nation is here ; 
oratory reaches its climax in Deuteronomy ; and 
in the department of prophecy the Bible stands 
alone. 

May we look at some examples.? 

Would we study biography.? Here is the 
" greatest soul of all the sons of men." Says 
Theodore Parker: 

" Blessed be God that so much manliness has 
been lived out, ^nd stands there yet, a lasting 



WHAT ARE THE SCRIPTURES? 31 

monument to mark how high the tides of divine 
life have risen in the world." 

Do we love the vivid in description? Here 
it is — the thunder-storm, and Jehovah in it. 
" The voice of the Lord is on the sea ; the God 
of glory thunder eth ; the Lord is on the mighty 
sea. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the 
voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice 
of the Lord breaketh the cedars ; yea, the Lord 
breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. The voice of 
the Lord divideth the flames of fire. The voice 
of the Lord shaketh the wilderness. The Lord 
sitteth upon the flood; yea, the Lord sitteth 
King forever." Psalm 29. 

Are we moved by the sublime? Read 
Jehovah's answer in Job 38: ^ Where 
wast thou when I laid the foundations of the 
earth? Whereupon are the foundations there- 
of fastened, and who laid the cornerstone 
thereof, when the stars of the morning sang to- 
gether and all the sons of God sang for joy? 
Or who shut up the sea with doors in its gush- 
ing forth when it issued from the womb ? When 
I made the cloud the garment thereof, and 
thick darkness a swaddling-band for it? When 
I brake upon it my law, and set bars and doors 
and said : ' Hitherto shalt thou come and no 
farther, and here shall thy proud waves be 
stayed '? Hast thou commanded the morning? 
Hast thou caused the dawn to know its place? 



n DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

Where is the way where light dwelleth? Who 
hast divided a water-course for the overflow- 
ing of waters, or a way for the lightning of 
thunder? Hath the rain a father? Or who 
hath begotten the drops of dew? " 

And in song and in hymn the Hebrew passes 
to the first place among mortals. All other 
lips are silent beside those of Ruth when she 
clothes the sentiments of tender fidelity and un- 
swerving loyalty in the immortal words : " En- 
treat me not to leave thee, nor to return from 
following after thee; for whither thou goest, I 
will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; 
thy people shall be my people, and thy God my 
God; where thou diest I will die, and there will 
I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more 
also, if aught but death part thee and me." 

All other narrative pales in naturalness and 
simplicity beside the parable of the prodigal 
son. 

Love is higher than the mountains, deeper 
than the seas, radiant as the morning, beauti- 
ful as the moonbeam upon the mountains, 
strong as the king of day at noon, mysterious 
as the midnight enfolding the world. But the 
poets of Greece, and the singers of Italy, and 
the heroes of the earth have failed to free this 
imprisoned bird of Paradise. Paul picks up 
his brush and lo, we see the shining glories of 
his wings : " Love suff ereth long, and is kind. 



WHAT ARE THE SCRIPTURES? 33 

Love envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not 
puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily 
provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in in- 
iquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all 
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, 
endureth all things. Love never faileth.'' 

May we look at some results? 

Here have the great artists of all time found 
their inspiration. Here have the poets whose 
names will never die drunk at a never-failing 
fountain. Here orators have seen visions. 
Here sages have dreamed dreams. Here hu- 
man thought transcends itself. Here the ideal 
takes precedence of the real. Here the sublime 
is clothed with immortal vesture. 

Coleridge said : " To give the history of the 
Bible as a book would be little else than to re- 
late the origin or first excitement of all the lit- 
erature we possess. From this storehouse of 
literary materials our leading writers have most 
freely drawn.'' 

Macaulay said : " The English Bible — a 
book which, if everything else in our language 
should perish, would alone suffice to show the 
whole extent of its beauty and power." 

Spenser's " Faery Queen " is drawn from the 
Bible as to its material, and also it finds its in- 
spiration there. 

Shakespeare alludes to the Bible in at least 
thirty-seven of his plays. To understand the 



34 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

allusions to the Bible in the " Merchant of Ven- 
ice " one must be familiar with Genesis 16: 25; 
27: 30; Deuteronomy 27; Psalm 119; Proverbs 
30 ; Daniel ; Matthew 5 : 6 ; 8 : 9 ; Luke 17 ; and 
Hebrews 11. 

Pope's " Messiah " is drawn from Isaiah. 

Cowper studied the Bible constantly. His 
best work is the " Task." Its highest strains 
are expansions from Isaiah. 

Milton's " Paradise Lost " was inspired by 
the Bible, and is saturated with it. 

The Bible was one of the four books that 
always lay on Byron's table. In his work 
" Darkness " he drew from the prophecies of 
Jeremiah. 

Browning in his " Easter-Day," and in 
" Christmas-Eve " has one hundred and thirty 
allusions to the Bible. In '' The Ring and the 
Book " there are over five hundred allusions. 

Shelley drew some of the finest passages in 
his " Queen Mab " from the Scriptures. 

Bryant's " Thanatopsis " finds its basis in 
Job. 

Wordsworth says, " The grand storehouse of 
enthusiastic and meditative imagination is the 
prophetic and lyrical parts of the Holy Scrip- 
tures." His " Ode to Immortality " is drawn 
from Romans 8, and from I Corinthians 15. 



WHAT ARE THE SCRIPTURES? 35 

Tennyson in his poems refers to Scripture 
over four hundred times. 

Edmund Burke, the peerless English states- 
man and orator, made it his habit to read a 
chapter from Isaiah before every speech that 
he made in the House of Commons. 

Daniel Webster said : " If there is aught of 
eloquence in me, it is because I learned the 
Scriptures at my mother's knee." 

John Ruskin said that if there was aught 
that was worthy in his style, it was because his 
mother taught him the Psalms when but a little 
child. 

As an awakener of thought the Bible stands 
first. At least sixty thousand books have been 
written about it alone. 

Hall Caine said : " I think that I know my 
Bible as few literary men know it. There is no 
book in the world like it, and the finest novels 
ever written fall far short in interest of any 
of the stories it tells. Whatever strong situa- 
tions I have in my book are not of my own cre- 
ation, but are taken from the Bible." 

" The Deemster " is the story of the prodigal 
son. " The Bondsman " is the story of Esau 
and Jacob. " The Scapegoat " is the story of 
Eli and his son. And " The Manxman " is the 
story of David and Uriah. 



36 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

VI. THE BIBLE AND MORALS 

Two flags are nailed to the mast : " Thou 
shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy 
heart " ; " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself." Under these shall the Christian sail. 
To these shall he be true. Nothing less than 
these will do. Nothing more than these is 
needed. Who is thy God? The Holy One of 
Israel. Who is thy neighbor? Humanity. 
And if the Bible had its way, all swords would 
be beaten into ploughshares, and all spears into 
pruning hooks, and every shackle would fall 
from every slave, and every yoke would break 
from every bondman, and injustice would give 
way to love, and hatred would give way to 
brotherhood, and the law of life would be the 
law of mutual helpfulness, and every relation 
between man and his fellowman would promote 
a meaning divine. 

When Egypt w^as the seat of the highest 
learning and the first culture in the world men 
worshipped beasts. When Greece was the seat 
of the world's noblest philosophy men wor- 
shipped Venus, a personification of lust. 
When Roman law reached the zenith of its tri- 
umphs Roman morals were wallowing in the 
mire. 

But wherever the Bible has touched the lives 
of the children of men, there schools have been 



WHAT ARE THE SCRIPTURES? 37 

opened ; barbarism has become civilization ; sav- 
ages have become saints ; vice has become vir- 
tue; manhood has been emancipated; woman 
has been freed; hymns have been sung; and 
churches have become centers of Hberty. 

Garibaldi said: "It is the Bible that has 
freed Italy.'^ 

France once set up a republic that tore the 
Bible from its throne. The Book was tied to 
the tail of an ass, and dragged in contempt 
through the streets. A public prostitute was 
placed upon the altar and worshipped as the 
goddess of reason. 

And Lamartine wrote : " The republic with- 
out God was quickly stranded. Though they 
wrote upon their standard liberty, equality and 
fraternity, the liberty was license ; the equality 
was lawlessness ; the fraternity was a riot of 
bloodshed." 

These, too, are the watchwords of the Evan- 
gel of the Christ. But here their meaning wid- 
ens as the receding horizon, and deepens as the 
soundless seas. For the liberty is the liberty 
of the children of God; and the equality is the 
equality of brotherhood; and the fraternity is 
the fraternity of love. 

VII. THE BIBLE AND ITS AUTHOR 

Who wrote this book.^ Let us interrogate 
and see. Did bad men write it? Then the 



38 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

best thing that the earth holds was conceived in 
a falsehood, born of a fraud, and cradled in a 
lie. And the hands of the men that held the 
pen wrote the most terrible condemnation of 
their own act in writing. 

Did good men write it? Then they wrote 
with a lie on their lips. Their hypocrisy was 
studied, continuous, complete, damnable. For 
this is their ever-repeated asseveration : " Thus 
saith the Lord." And as poets, prophets, law- 
givers, seers and sages, these men stand among 
men without peer. 

What is this Book — written in three conti- 
nents, Europe, Asia and Africa? Written in 
three languages, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek? 
Written by thirty-six authors among whom 
were poets, scholars, fishermen, physicians, 
seers, busines men, judges, shepherds, jurists, 
prophets, kings. 

What is this Book — that does not attempt 
to prove immortality, but publishes it? That 
does not argue eternal life, but reveals it? 
This Book of which it has been well said : 
" The sun never sets on its gleaming page. It 
goes equally to the cottage of the plain man, 
and the palace of the king. It is woven into 
the literature of the scholar, and colors the 
talk of the street. It enters into men's closets, 
mingles in all the grief and cheerfulness of life. 
It blesses us when we are born, and is with us 



WHAT ARE THE SCRIPTURES? 39 

at our bridals and burials. The aching head 
finds a softer pillow when the Bible lies under- 
neath. It tempers our grief to finer issues. It 
lifts man above himself. The timid man look- 
ing through the glass of Scripture does not 
fear to stand alone, to tread the way unknown 
and distant, to take the death-angel by the 
hand, and to bid farewell to wife and babes and 
home. Men rest on it their dearest hopes. It 
tells them of God, and of his blessed Son; of 
earthly duties, and of heavenly rest." 



CHAPTER IV 
IS CHRIST THE SON OF GOD? 

" He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." 

I. JESUS CHRIST NOT A MAN 

" I know men, and I tell you that Jesus is 
not a man. Everything in him amazes me. 
His spirit outreaches mine, and his will con- 
founds me. Comparison is impossible between 
him and any other being in the world. He is 
truly a being by himself. His ideas and his 
sentiments, the truth that he announces, his 
manner of convincing, are all beyond humanity 
and the natural order of things. His birth 
and the story of his life; the profoundness of 
his doctrine, which overturns all difficulties and 
is their most complete solution; his gospel, the 
singularity of his mysterious being ; his appear- 
ance; his empire; his progress through all 
countries and kingdoms — all this is to me 
a prodigy, an unfathomable mystery. I see 
nothing here of m.an. Near as I may ap- 
proach, closely as I may examine, all remains 
above my comprehension — great with a great- 
ness that crushes me. It is in yaip that I re^ 

40 



IS CHRIST THE SON OF GOD? 41 

fleet — all remains unaccountable. Thus did 
Napoleon express himself about Jesus Christ. 

The Incarnation, Deity within humanity — 
the thought has ever staggered the unspiritual 
mind. This is the central and amazing as- 
sertion of Christianity. This is overwhelming 
presumption to the sceptic. That the great 
God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, would 
wear the robes of humanity, and assume the 
garments of the clay, would manifest himself 
in the form of the flesh — this passes belief, 
this is incredible. 

And like the men in the days of old, they ask 
for proof. But Jesus did not come to bring 
proofs of the Incarnation. He was the Incar- 
nation. He was not a proof. He was the 
manifestation. An apple tree does not present 
proofs of itself. It is an apple tree. Jesus 
did not come to prove God. He came to mani- 
fest God. He did not bring statements and 
signs. He bore the marks of Deity. The evi- 
dences were upon him. 

There are two leading conceptions of Jesus 
Christ abroad in the world today. One, that 
He was what He proclaimed himself, the Son of 
God. The other that He was the world's 
greatest Teacher. But the latter of these He 
could not be. For if He were not the former. 
He was either a dupe or a liar. Thus said the 
Jews. They needed no interpreter. They 



42 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

knew. And this was their verdict : " For a 
good work we stone thee not. But because that 
thou, being a man, makest thyself God." And 
this was their accusation to Pilate: " We have 
a law, and by our law he ought to die, because 
he made himself the Son of God." Thus said 
the Jews who knew him, reasoned with him, ac- 
cused him, and crucified him for blasphemy, 
" because he made himself the Son of God." 
Now, either he or they were right. If he was 
right, he was the Son of God. If they were 
right, they were bound by their law to put him 
to death. 

May we turn to a study of the testimony : 

II. JESUS CHRIST EQUAL WITH GOD 

Jesus Christ made the claim that he was 
equal with God. For he said : " I and my 
Father are one." " My Father worketh hith- 
erto, and I work." " That ye may know that 
the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive 
sins, I say unto thee, arise." " Have I been so 
long time with thee, and yet hast thou not 
known me, Philip ? He that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father, and how sayest thou then, show 
us the Father? " 

Can you explain these statements on any 
other ground than that Christ is equal with 
God? As said above, this was the Jews' under- 
standing of him, and this was why they took up 



IS CHRIST THE SON OF GOD? 43 

stones to stone him. And notice, Jesus did not 
tell them that they had misunderstood him. 
Instead he accepted their interpretation of his 
claims. 

For he made these claims. And he substan- 
tiated them by his character, and his works. 
To these he appealed : " Which of you con- 
vinceth me of sin?" "Believe in me for the 
very works' sake." Can we believe that he was 
a deceiver? And claimed to be what he was 
not? Or can we believe that God would enable 
him to work miracles in support of a false- 
hood ? 

III. THE NEW TESTAMENT PRESENTS JESUS 
CHRIST AS GOD 

" In the beginning was the Word, and the 
Word was with God, and the Word was God." 
" And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt 
among us." — Jno. 1. 

" And Thomas answered and said unto him, 
my Lord and my God." — Jno. 20 : 28. 

" Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to 
all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath 
made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, 
which he hath purchased with his own blood."— 
Acts 20 : 28. 

" Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ 
came, who is over all, God blessed for ever." — 
Rom. 9 : 5. 



44 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

" Great is the mystery of godliness, God 
manifest in the flesh."— I Tim. 3: 16. 

" This (person, Jesus Christ) is the true God 
and eternal life." — I Jno. 5 : 20. 

" Looking for that blessed hope, and the 
glorious appearing of the great God, and our 
Saviour Jesus Christ." — Titus 2 : 3. 

IV. JESUS CHRIST AS GOD MANIFEST IN THE 
FLESH 

May we turn to a brief and systematic study 
of the presentation of Jesus Christ in the Scrip- 
tures as God manifest in the flesh : 

First, the names in Scripture that imply De- 
ity, and that are applied to Jesus Christ. 

1. " The Son of God." This name implies 
divinity. " Therefore the Jews sought the 
more to kill him, because he had not only broken 
the Sabbath, but said also that God was his 
Father, making himself equal with God." Thus 
the Jews understood him. Thus his disciples 
understood him. 

2. " The only begotten Son." Five times 
this is found. It does not mean that Jesus is 
the Son of God in the same sense that all men 
are sons of God. For Jesus himself gives it 
another interpretation. He says, " Having 
yet therefore One Son, His well-beloved. He sent 
Him also last unto them, saying, ' They will 
reverence My Son.' " Here the distinction is 



IS CHRIST THE SON OF GOD? 45 

drawn by Jesus Himself, between the prophets 
as servants and Himself as Son. 

3. " The First and the Last."— Rev. 11 : 17. 
This is a divine name. In Isaiah 44 : 6 it ap- 
pears thus, " Thus saith Jehovah, the King of 
Israel, and his Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts ; I 
am the first, and I am the last; and besides 
me there is no God." 

4. " The Alpha and the Omega." " The Be- 
ginning and the Ending." These are applied 
to Jesus Christ in Rev. 22: 12, 13, 16. And in 
Rev. 1 : 8 they are applied to the Lord our God. 

5. "The Holy One."— Acts 3:14. But in 
many passages in the Old Testament this name 
is applied to Jehovah. 

6. " The Lord." This name appears hun- 
dreds of times as applied to Jesus Christ. 

Other names are : 

"Lord of all."— Acts 10:36. 

" The Lord of Glory."— I Cor. 2 : 8. 

" The Mighty God."— Isa. 9 : 6. 

" God." In Heb. 1 : 8, we read, " But of the 
Son he saith. Thy throne, O God, is for ever 
and ever." 

" God with us."— Matt. 1 : 2S. 

" Our Great God."— Titus 2: 13. 

" God blessed forever." — Rom. 9: 5. 

Second, divine attributes are ascribed to Je- 
sus Christ. 

He had power over disease, and sin, and 



46 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

death. He had power over the winds and the 
sea. He had power over angels, and demons, 
and men. 

We are taught that he knew the thoughts of 
men, and the secrets of their hearts. We are 
taught that he knew the future. Over the des- 
tinies hidden within it, he claimed that he would 
preside. We are told that in Him " are hid all 
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." 

We are taught that He is from eternity. 
" The same was in the beginning with God." 

We are taught that before His incarnation. 
He was in the form of God. — Phil. 2 : 6. 

And again Paul declares that " In Him dwelt 
all the fullness of the God-head bodily."— Col. 
2:9. 

Thirdy divine offices are predicated of Jesus 
Christ. 

He is the Creator.— Jno. 1 : 3. Col. 1:16. 
Heb. 1 : 10. 

He forgives sin. — Luke 7 : 48. 

He raises the dead. — Jno. 6 : 39-44. 

He is the judge of the living and the dead. — 
II Tim. 4:1. 

Of this He Himself says, " For the Father 
judge th no man, but hath committed all judg- 
ment unto the Son. That all men should honor 
the Son even as they honor the Father. He 
that honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the 
Father who hath sent Him." — Jno. 5 : 22, 23. 



IS CHRIST THE SON OF GOD? 47 

He bestows eternal life. — Jno. 10 : 28 ; 17 : 2. 

Fourth, the Scriptures teach that divine wor- 
ship is to be offered to Jesus Christ. Two of 
these references are : 

" And again, when he bringeth in the first be- 
gotten into the world, he saith, And let all the 
angels of God worship Him." — Heb. 1 : 6. 

" That at the name of Jesus, every knee 
should bow, of things in heaven, and things in 
earth, and things under the earth, and that 
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ 
is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." 

These passages teach and assert directly the 
deity of Jesus Christ. But other references in 
the Psalms, and in the prophets are in point. 
There he is called the everlasting Father, the 
Prince of Peace. He is the image of the invisi- 
ble God. He is omnipresent and omniscient. 
He is to be honored even as we honor the 
Father. His actions are divine actions. His 
attributes are divine attributes. He is before 
all things. He is the Creator of all things. 
If the Scriptures stand as the infallible rule of 
faith, the deity of Jesus Christ is placed be- 
yond dispute. 

This opens the way for the objection to be 
raised here of the incomprehensibility of the 
mystery of the Trinity. Of course it is a mys- 
tery. Of course it is incomprehensible. But 
should the creature who cannot even under- 



48 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

stand how the food he eats nourishes the body 
he lives in, reject the Trinity of Deity because 
it passes his understanding? 

V. BASIS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

The entire New Testament is based upon the 
assumption that Jesus Christ is the Son of 
God. 

This is by far the most impressive proof of 
the deity of Jesus Christ, and also, by far the 
most difficult to present. Go to the edge of the 
forest. Gather a few sticks beneath the trees. 
Throw them into a pile and set fire to them. 
That is easy proof that they are concentrated 
sunshine. But the impressive fact is that the 
whole forest is concentrated sunshine. 

Now, the deity of Jesus Christ is in the New 
Testament as the sunshine Is in the forest. The 
forest is the sunshine robing itself, and showing 
itself in garments of clay. And Jesus Christ 
in the New Testament is Deity transformed. 
Deity robing itself and showing itself through 
the garments of human life. 

And notice, had there been no sunshine there 
would have been no forest. And had there been 
no Jesus Christ, the Son of God, there would 
have been no New Testament. Of course there 
might have been a little biography of Jesus the 
Jew. 

Take all the wood which shows sunshine in it 



IS CHRIST THE SON OF GOD? 49 

out of the forest, and you have no forest left. 
And take everything out of the New Testament 
that shows Jesus Christ the Son of God in it, 
and you have no New Testatment left. 

May we look for a moment at one or two in- 
stances where the New Testament proceeds upon 
the assumption of the Deity of Jesus Christ:. 
One of the most suggestive is his relationship 
to the angels. Speaking of himself, he says : 
" The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, 
and they shall gather out of His kingdom all 
things that cause stumbling and those that do 
iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace 
of fire."— Matt. 13:41. 

Again he says : " The Son of Man shall 
come in the glory of His Father with His an- 
gels, and then shall He reward every man ac- 
cording to his deeds." — Matt. 16:27. 

Again he says : " The Son of Man shall send 
forth His angels with a great sound of a trum- 
pet, and they shall gather together His elect 
from the four winds, from one end of heaven to 
the other."— Matt. 24:31. 

Again he says : " The Son of Man shall 
come in His glory, and all the holy angels with 
Him, and before Him shall be gathered all na- 
tions. And He shall separate them one from 
another." 

Who is the Son of Man at whose bidding 
angels speed; in whose hands are the issues of 



50 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

life and death ; at whose direction angels sepa- 
rate men? 

Another most suggestive example in his atti- 
tude toward sinful men. This he identifies with 
the attitude of heaven. There are three para- 
bles in the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke. In 
each of these Jesus portrays the sinner coming 
home. And in each instance he indicates the 
attitude of heaven, thus : " There is j oy in 
heaven over one sinner that repenteth." Now 
his purpose in these parables was this : the justi- 
fication of his own attitude toward sinners, and 
his own action in seeking the lost. And he does 
it on this ground : it is the attitude and the ac- 
tion of heaven toward the sinful man. He 
identifies heaven with himself. He unveils the 
transaction in its real nature. This is his way, 
because it is heaven's way. The lost are re- 
ceived by him as they are received by heaven. 
And the part of the Good Shepherd is assumed 
as his own. 

VI. THE REVOLUTION WROUGHT IN THE 
WORLD 

There is another testimony. It is this: 
The revolution wrought in the world. 

This is the plainest of all. This is the most 
easily seen. It is like the mountain in the land- 
scape. Christianity is itself the most convinc- 
ing proof that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. 



IS CHRIST THE SON OF GOD? 51 

Nearly two thousand years ago the conquests 
of the Christ began. With every generation 
they have been repeated. For though Chris- 
tianity widens at the horizons, the generations at 
their beginnings are unchanged. Christianity 
must re-conquer the world to itself in each gen- 
eration. 

And the force remains unspent. The fires 
of love burn on. Never so many martyrs bap- 
tized in their own blood. Never so many mis- 
sionaries counting all things but loss for Christ. 
Never so much wealth laid at the foot of the 
Cross. Never so much energy, so much or- 
ganized effort, so much intelligence, so much 
ability, so much consecration to the cause of 
Christianity as there is today. Is it all because 
a Jewish peasant was properly put to death 
1900 years ago for blasphemy.? Or is it 
grandly true as Montgomery sings: 

" Hail to the Lord's Anointed^ 

Great David's greater Son; 
Hail in the time appointed 

His reign on earth begun. 
He comes to break oppression 

To set the captive free; 
To take away transgression^ 

And rule in equity.'' 

*' He shall come down like showers 
Upon the fruitful earthy 
And joy and hope^ like flowers^ 



52 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

Spring in His path to birth; 
Before Him on the mountains^ 

Shall peace^ the herald^ go; 
And righteousness in fountains. 

From hill to valley flow/' 

VII. THE REVOLUTION WROUGHT IN THE 
HUMAN HEART 

There is another testimony : The revolution 
wrought in the human heart. 

It is the testimony of experience. We believe 
the sight of our eyes. We trust the touch of 
our fingers. We accept the hearing of our ears. 
But philosophy is builded upon the presumption 
that we accept the facts of consciousness. So, 
too, does Christianity appeal to the facts of ex- 
perience. Shall we be guilty of the slander 
upon ourselves that a man may know that his 
body needs bread, but he may not know that 
he loves his child? Does physical experience 
tell the truth, and spiritual experience utter 
lies.'^ Shall a man believe the touch of his 
fingers, but reject the noblest experiences that 
arise within him ? Shall a physical fact be pre- 
sented in consciousness — namely, that stones 
are hard — and shall the validity of the same 
pass unquestioned; and shall a spiritual fact, 
as a mother's love for her child, be presented in 
consciousness, and the validity of the same be 
denied .f^ This is to say that one-half our nature 



IS CHRIST THE SON OF GOD? 53 

tells the truth, and the other half utters lies. 
It is to contradict all philosophy. 

For the testimony of the Christian, arising 
in his own experience, and welling within his own 
breast, and flowing as a fountain within his own 
heart, and transforming all his being, as the 
waters transform the desert — this is the wit- 
ness to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is 
the supreme proof. And the lives of such men 
in Christendom, answering the call of the noble, 
and the righteous, and the gentle, and the loving 
— these are the unanswerable testimony to the 
present power of Him from whom the strength 
so to live is drawn. As a man knows he loves 
his mother, as a man knows he loves his country, 
as a mother knows she loves her child, so the 
Christian knows Christ within, the hope of 
glory. For " The Spirit Himself beareth wit- 
ness with our spirit, that we are the children of 
God." And the Christian sings in the joy of 
his heart : 

** My God is reconciled. 

His pardoning voice I hear; 
He owns me for his child, 

I can no longer fear; 
With confidence I now draw nigh, 
And Father, Abba, Father cry." 



CHAPTER V 
THE REALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 

" But we preach Christ and Him crucified, to the Jews 
a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness, but to 
them which believe, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the 
power of God, and the wisdom of God." 

I. GENUINENESS OF CHRISTIANITY INDI- 
CATED BY ITS EXCELLENCE 

The most beautiful thing in the world is sun- 
light, but its birth-place is in the resplendent 
sun. And only the sun could give birth to such 
a marvelously beautiful, transcendent, produc- 
tive power as is the subtle, pervasive, transform- 
ing force we call the sunlight. And the gospel 
of the Son of God was born from above. Its 
birth-place was the bosom of God. The power 
that redeems men, that regenerates men, that 
transforms men, that recreates men, was gen- 
erated by God. It proceeds from Deity. It 
is not made by man, nor conceived by man, nor 
generated by man. No more than the earth 
could give birth to the sunshine that is the 
secret of its own redemption could man bring 
forth the power that would accomplish his own 

re-creation, that transforms him from the 

54 



REALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 55 

creature of self-condemnation, staggering under 
the weight of his transgression, to the child of 
light and liberty and love, conscious and con- 
vinced that he has been ransomed and justified, 
and one day will be glorified, when love divine 
shall have come to full fruition in his soul. 

As the sunlight stands alone as the one 
unique, creative, transforming power found 
upon the earth, so is Christianity among men. 
As the sunlight carries in its train all growth, 
all fruitage, all harvest, all beauty of flower and 
field and forest, so Christianity carries within 
it all beauty of heart, all nobleness of soul, all 
strength of spirit. 

The roots of the rose are found in the soil, 
but the I hand that holds the brush that paints 
the matchless beauty of its petals is found in 
the sun. And the body of man is formed of 
the dust and the clay, but the Hand that re- 
creates him in the image of the Eternal is found 
in the heavens. It cometh from above. This is 
Christianity, — the thought and life and love of 
Infinity pulsing and throbbing and thrilling 
through the life of humanity. 

II. REALITY OF CHRISTIANITY INDICATED 
BY ITS ORIGIN 

It was not in the mind of man. Its aim is 
the rescue of the race itself. Its object is de- 



56 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

liverance from sin, and ransom from death, and 
the enduement of a new life-power transcending 
destruction and reaching unto righteousness 
and immortality. Its goal is the re-creation of 
the children of the clay to become the children 
of God. Its process is the incarnation of the 
divine within the human to the end that the 
human shall become partakers of the divine, 
and shall share in the estate of goodness which 
is the abode of Deity. And this conception 
never had its origin in the brain of philosopher, 
or poet, or prophet, or seer: it was born in the 
bosom of Deity. It is the thought of Infinity. 
Men do not compose pieces of fiction for the 
purpose of the forgiveness of sin, the destruc- 
tion of death, and the defeat of the grave. 
Men do not write novels for the purpose that 
their fellowmen may be born again of the Holy 
Ghost. The very conception of Christianity is 
transcendent. The grandeur and the sublimity 
of its idea are a revelation of its home and its 
place of birth, even as the lustre of the diamond 
tells the story of the sun. 

III. REALITY OF CHRISTIANITY INDICATED 
BY THE MEANS IT SETS IN MOTION TO 
ACCOMPLISH ITS PROPOSED TASK 

They proceed from Deity, and the theatre 
of their operations is not only the human race 
but the heart of God and the bosom of the 



REALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 57 

Infinite. " For God so loved the world that He 
gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
lieveth in Him should not perish but should have 
everlasting life." This is the story of salva- 
tion for man, told in terms not of the human, 
but of the divine. Now, time and again, men 
have attempted to construct and to interpret 
plans of salvation. But these have always 
sprung from men, not from Deit}^ Neither 
have they ever been of grace and love, but al- 
ways of works and penance and merit. Neither 
have they ever risen to the high levels, not only 
of deliverance from sin and death, but of the 
obtaining of eternal life. Rather they have 
been schemes of deliverance from temporal trou- 
bles, — viz., poverty, and drudgery, and pain, 
and sickness, and ignorance. But Christianity 
sanctifies tribulation, and confers a blessing 
through suffering. Meanwhile the people are 
still with us who would make salvation to con- 
sist in success, and Christianity to consist in 
culture. These it surely will lead to, but these, 
as such, it assuredly is not. " For the free 
gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ 
our Lord." 

IV. REALITY OF CHRISTIANITY ATTESTED 
BY THE INCARNATION 

Whence came this conception to redeem the 
race by the incarnation of the Son of God.'^ 



58 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

Not to the Jew He rejected it then, as he does 
today, as being in antagonism to monotheism. 
Not to his followers. It was only after He had 
arisen from the dead and the Holy Ghost had 
come upon them in illuminating power that the 
transcendent and overwhelming truth of the 
spiritual re-creation of the race through the 
mediatorship of a Divine Redeemer forced it- 
self upon their consciousness and transformed 
their lives. Whence came the power that en- 
abled this man to live a sinless life, for a sinless 
man had never before, and has never since, 
been known. Whence came this transcendent 
wisdom. Whence his superhuman power .^^ 
Whence came the authority of his pronounce- 
ment of a general resurrection, and a universal 
judgment of the race? Whence is this Son of 
Man who appears unto us in the Gospels.'* 
There is only one answer to these questions, — 
" Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living 
God." For these things have proceeded not 
from the mind of man, but they had their origin 
in the thought of God, and their birth in the 
bosom of Deity. 

V. REALITY OF CHRISTIANITY INDICATED BY 
ITS ADAPTATION TO THE END FOR WHICH 
IT WAS DESIGNED 

Its object is the spiritual purification and re- 
creation of the race. " Though your sins be 



REALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 59 

as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." " I 
will put my laws in their minds, and in their 
hearts will I write them, and I will be to them 
a God, and they shall be to me a people." 
This is such a superhuman task, — a task ut- 
terly and wholly passing man's ability, and out- 
reaching human power, — that outside of Holy 
Writ we do not find even so much as a sugges- 
tion of it. But lo, — in Christianity we find the 
prophecy of the Christ fulfilled, " Ye shall know 
the truth, and the truth shall make you free." 
Christianity purifies the heart, cleanses the 
imagination, illuminates the understanding, en- 
lightens and quickens the conscience, ennobles 
the affections, kindles exalted emotions, em- 
powers the will. Whence is this power? 
Whence is this divine energy that makes new 
men.'^ Is the water born of the desert.^ Does 
the sunshine spring from the ground? Is the 
electric current generated by the conductor? 
Is the harvest the offspring of the soil? But 
the seed, and the shower, and the sunshine are 
each fitted to accomplish their allotted task. 
And the Gospel of the Son of God is fitted to 
accomplish its sublime purpose, and to accom- 
plish its transcendent aim. And this because 
it proceeds not from the mind of man, but from 
the Creator of the race. " Not by might, nor 
by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of 
Hosts," " Mine own arm brought salvation,'' 



60 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

" Ye have been redeemed not with corruptible 
things, such as silver and gold, but with the 
precious blood of Christ." " For by grace are 
ye saved, through faith, and that not of your- 
selves ; it is the gift of God." 

VI. REALITY OF CHRISTIANITY INDICATED 
BY THE PERFECTION OF ITS POWER TO 
ACCOMPLISH ITS PURPOSE 

Christianity postulates that mankind in gen- 
eral, and individuals in particular, have been 
cast out of the favor of God by the intrusion 
of sin. Common observation and the individual 
conscience alike testify to the fact of sin. The 
resulting condition is disaster, destruction, 
death. Christianity proposes to remedy this 
condition. How does it set itself to the task? 
Not by telling men that there is no reality in 
sin, (for then to talk of salvation and de- 
liverance from it would be nonsense) ; not by 
telling men that it is a superficial thing, a 
trifling matter that God will altogether over- 
look, (men know better; the testimony of the 
consciousness of the race is overwhelmingly 
against this) ; not by telling men that they can 
save themselves, (men soon discover the folly 
of this). Christianity essays the task of the 
reclamation of the race by proclaiming that it is 
the undertaking of the Almighty; that He who 
hath created hath also redeemed; that the ac- 



REALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 61 

tion springs from the divine love; that the heart 
of God is broken by human loss; and the love of 
God in long-suffering and tender mercy hastens 
to the rescue of man in his need. 

For Christianity essays not only pardon, but 
regeneration and righteousness. For man shall 
be made hoh\ " When the clay was marred 
in the hands of the potter, he made it again." 
Man shall know the truth. Man shall practice 
righteousness. Man shall hate the eyil and loye 
the good. " Being made free from sin, they 
shall haye their fruit unto holiness, and the end 
eyerlasting life." The prayer of the psalmist 
shall be answered in eyery seeking soul, — 
" Create in me a clean heart, God, and re- 
new a right spirit within me." The old man, 
with his deeds, shall be put off. The new man, 
which is of God created in righteousness and 
holiness, shall be put on. 

Is it possible.^ Are the means adequate to 
accomplish this work.^ Let history tell. 
While 1900 years haye rolled, millions upon 
millions of human souls haye been translated out 
of darkness into the maryelous light of the 
Spirit, and haye been changed from the seryice 
of Satan to the seryice of the Liying God. 

And meanwhile the world has been full of 
other expedients. Ceremonies, incantations, 
mummeries, philosophies, legislation, penances, 
denials, — these haye tried their hand at the 



62 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

salvation of the soul, — and have tried in vain. 

But never once has a human soul sought 
the kingdom of heaven through Jesus the Christ, 
the Saviour of men, and been denied. For 
" Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise 
cast out." " And this is life eternal, that men 
may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus 
Christ whom thou hast sent." 

For Christianity essays not only salvation 
from sin in the life that now is, but in the world 
to come, life everlasting. " I am the resurrec- 
tion and the life, saith the Lord; he that be- 
lieveth in me, though he were dead, yet shall 
he live; and whoso liveth and believeth in me 
shall never die." " For we know that if our 
earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, 
we have a building of God, an house not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens." For we 
shall be delivered " from the bondage of cor- 
ruption, into the liberty of the glory of the 
children of God." This is the triumph of 
Christianity. 

'* Break off your tears^ ye saints and tell^ 
How high your great Deliverer reigns; 
Sing how He spoiled the hosts of hell^ 
And led the monster^ death^ in chains. 
SaVj, Live forever^ wondrous King^ 
Born to redeem^ and strong to save^ 
Then ask the monster ' Where's thy sting? 
And where's thy victory^ boasting grave ? ' '* 



REALITY OF CHRISTIANITY 63 

VII. REALITY OF CHRISTIANITY INDICATED 
BY THE WORK IT HAS WROUGHT 

This IS the argument from effect to cause, — 
and it is absolutely irresistible. For men by 
millions have been lifted from perdition, and 
loss, and shame, to power, and beauty, and 
Christ-like manhood. Souls have been made 
to sing, cowards have been made conquerors, 
fainting spirts have become triumphant, sor- 
rows have been turned into rejoicing, sin and 
uncleanness have been put away, death has lost 
its terrors, and eternity has become a blessed 
and hopeful certainty for countless thousands 
of the race of Adam. Christianity brings the 
stricken souls of men to their Creator, and there 
they are washed; they are purified; they are 
sanctified, — and there they shall be glorified. 
What is it ? It is " the power of God, and the 
wisdom of God." 

Beginning with the little Apostolic band, de- 
spised, persecuted, trampled upon, spoken 
against, legislated against — without wealth, 
without schools, without a country, without 
a sword — it has wrestled against principali- 
ties and powers ; subdued kingdoms ; wrought 
righteousness ; levelled thrones, overthrown evil 
long entrenched ; put to flight the hosts of hell ; 
emancipated millions of the oppressed; and to- 
day, as never before, assuredly essays the con- 
quest for God, and truth, and righteousness, 



64* DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

and kindness, and brotherhood, and love of the 
nations of the whole world. 

In full assurance of faith His followers sing 
of the hastening triumph of their divine Re- 
deemer and glorious King : 

" O'er every foe victorious^ 
He on His throne shall rest^ 
From age to age more glorious^ 
All-blessings and all-blessed. 
The tide of time shall never^ 
His covenant remove^ 
His name shall stand forever^ 
His changeless name of Love." 



CHAPTER VI 

HAS GOD REVEALED HIMSELF 
TO MAN? 

" Christ the dynamic of God unto salvation." 

CHRISTIAX COXCEPTION OF THE WORLD 
FOUNDED OX THE REVELATIOX OF GOD 

For Christianity is a religion that rests on 
the Di^^ne Revelation. It is not a scientific 
system. It is not a philosophy. But it must 
be in harmony with the conclusions at which 
sound reason, attacking independently its own 
problems, arrives. 

It has a world-view of its own. And this is 
because it begins with a personal, hoh^, self- 
revealing God. And further because its con- 
tent is the redemption of the human race. 

Hence it has its own interpretation to give of 
the facts of existence. It has its own way of 
looking at and accounting for the natural and 
the moral order. And it has its own concep- 
tion of the end and the aim of things — the 
final consummation of it all. 

Pliilosophy says that we cannot know all 

about God. God, in the deeps of His infinity, 

65 



66 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

we cannot know. Neither can we know God in 
all the many modes of His revealed being. 
These things are beyond us. We can only ap- 
proximate them. 

And long ago the Scripture said " Canst thou 
by searching find out God? Canst thou find 
out the Almighty unto perfection?" ^' Oh, 
the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and 
knowledge of God ! How unsearchable are His 
judgments, and His ways past finding out!" 
^' Now I know in part." 

But we may know in part. For if the nature 
of God and the nature of man are not foreign 
to each other — if man is made in the divine 
image — if in some measure man bears the like- 
ness of God — then there is an element in the 
mind of man kindred with something in the 
being of God, and real knowledge is possible. 

Again, the last result of science and the last 
word in philosophy is that God is one, and 
that God is absolute and infinite. This is 
Monotheism. But it is the Bible that has given 
Monotheism to the world. Three thousand 
years ago the seer of Israel said : " Hear, O 
Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord." And 
from Israel, through Christianity, it has passed 
to the possession of the race. 

Again, science proceeds upon the assumption 
that there is a rational order in the world. In- 
deed there could be no science itself unless this 



HAS GOD REVEALED HIMSELF? 67 

were true. We could arrive at no conclusions 
regarding anything unless there were order and 
system and consistency. But this is just what 
science proceeds to demonstrate is here. There 
is rational order in the world. There is ra- 
tional order in the human mind. Can we avoid 
the conclusions that the power from which these 
proceed is itself rational? But long ago the 
Scriptures said, " In wisdom hast thou made 
them all." 

Again, we are told by philosophy that there 
is a " Power, not ourselves, that makes for 
righteousness." There is a moral order in the 
universe. Herbert Spencer calls it " a ration- 
alized version of the ethical principles." But 
here we are again catching up with the Scrip- 
tures. " The word is very nigh thee, even in 
thy heart that thou mayest do it." And here 
we have reached not only intelligence and wis- 
dom, but a will bent on the determination of 
good. And this good embraces the highest per- 
fection and happiness of man. Hence this in- 
telligent power that in wisdom works for right- 
eousness is surely itself righteous and just and 
good. And this is Theism. 

II. THAT GOD SHOULD REVEAL HIMSELF TO 
MAN BOTH NECESSARY AND REASONABLE 

Lord Kelvin says : " Scientific thought is 
compelled to accept the thought of creative 



68 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

power." And we have just seen that this power 
is beneficent, and just, and good. Then this is 
also true, — if we are the offspring of a " good 
God," of a " beneficent Creator," would such an 
one have left us without a guide in a world of 
sorrow and sin.^ And this the more, that men 
are created with the desire to seek and to 
" search out concerning all things that are done 
under heaven." Man will strive to know God. 
Man will endeavor to find out His character. 
Man will strive to learn what are his relations 
to the world, and to man. Man will grapple 
with sin, and will seek to know a way to be de- 
livered from it. And is it not to be supposed, 
is it not a normal conclusion, that if God is 
good, " He will not leave us in the dust," but 
that rather He will place within our hand a 
knowledge of Himself, and of ourselves, and of 
sin, and of righteousness, and of redemption, 
and of judgment, a revelation that will cover all 
our need.^ 

Again, when we turn to the order of things 
around us we find the idea of a revelation from 
God to man, to be suggested everywhere. So 
soon as the necessity for communication from 
one individual to another arises, the means for 
that communication is found to be in existence. 
Revelation is the law and order of things. 
That which is felt is told. The inferior animals 
tell, by many voices and numberless sounds, their 



HAS GOD REVEALED HIMSELF? 69 

feelings one for another. The animal world is 
full of it. It is part of the order of nature that 
wherever there is animal life and feeling, there 
is the capacity for communication. And when 
we ascend in the scale and come to man, this 
capacity is increased. Society is communica- 
tion between individuals. And this communica- 
tion is a revelation of the thought, and the 
feeling, and the experience, and the life, of 
one individual to another individual. There is 

a world without a tongue a world of trees 

and clods and stones ; and there is another world 
where communication is constant and universal. 
And shall we deem it true that the robin can 
sing his devotion, and the dove can tell his loy- 
alty, and the lion can call his mate, and the 
whelps of the wolf can be answered when they 
cry for meat in their lair ; but the God of good- 
ness and kindness and love cannot make Himself 
known to His own, and the children of His cre- 
ation shall be unanswered when they call? Per- 
ish the thought ! When we think soberly, it is 
unthinkable. The God who loves man, and the 
man who cries out for God — shall these be for- 
ever severed? Shall a silence, deep and vast, 
and impassable, forever stand between? Can 
man communicate with man? And is He who 
made man like Himself forever gagged and fet- 
tered and bound .^ Shall there be no " Word of 
God "? Must infinite love be dumb? Must in- 



70 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

finite goodness be helpless ? Must infinite kind- 
ness be impotent? Rather it is grandly and 
forever true : 

** Lord of all beings throned af ar^ 
Thy glory flames from sun and star; 
Center and soul of every sphere. 
Yet to each loving heart, how near. 

'' O God, where'er thy people meet, 
There they behold the mercy seat; 
Where'er they seek Thee, Thou art found, 
And every place is hallowed ground/' 

Dr. James Orr says : " The God and Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ is a being who Him- 
self draws near to man, and seeks fellowship 
with him ; whose relations with the spirits He 
has made are free and personal; who is as lov- 
ingly communicative as man, on his part, is 
expected to be trustfully receptive; to whom 
man can speak and He answers." 

Dr. Martineau says : " How should related 
spirits, joined by a common creative aim, in- 
tent upon whatever things are pure and good, 
live in the presence of each other, the one the 
bestower, the other the recipient, of a sacred 
trust, and exchange no thought, and give no 
sign of love between them ? " 

Pfleiderer says : " And why should it be less 



HAS GOD REVEALED HIMSELF? 71 

possible for God to enter into a loving fellow- 
ship with us than for men to do so with each 
other? I should be inclined to think that He 
is even more capable of doing so. To Him our 
hearts are as open as each man's heart is to 
himself. He sees through and through them. 
And He desires to live in them, and to fill them 
with His ov/n sacred energy and blessedness." 

III. HOW GOD HAS REVEALED HIMSELF TO 

MAN 

Passing the witness of nature : '' The 
heavens declare the glory of God, and the firma- 
ment showeth His handiwork. Day unto day 
uttereth speech and night unto night showeth 
knowledge." 

'* The spacious firmament on high 
With all the blue ethereal sky^ 

And spangled heavens^ a shining frame, 
Their great original proclaim." 

** The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas and the 

hills and the plains, — 
Are not these, O soul, the vision of Him who 

reigns? " 

Passing the testimony of reason, " Hath not 
Mine hand made all these things ? " 

Passing the testimony of consciousness, '' For 
in Him we live, and move and have our being." 



72 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

May we turn to the Scriptures, — the written 
Word, the Word of God ; for the Scriptures un- 
cover Christ, and Christ uncovers God. 

May we ask three questions : 

1. What are the Scriptures? 

This is the testimony of the Scriptures to 
themselves : They say, " Thus saith the 
Lord"; "The Word of the Lord came"; 
" Christ spake in Him " ; " Who hath made 
man's mouth? Have not I, the Lord? I will 
put my words into thy mouth " ; "I will give 
thee tables of stone, commandments w^iich I 
have written " ; " And He gave unto Moses on 
Mount Sinai, two tables of testimonj^, tables 
of stone, written with the finger of God " ; 
" Holy men of old spake as they were moved 
by the Holy Ghost " ; " The Scriptures must be 
fulfilled " ; " The Scriptures cannot be broken." 

2. Who is this Christ? 

May we take His testimony concerning Him- 
self? For surely His testimony, it may fairly 
be presumed, few of us would care to dispute. 
What does He say of Himself? Pie says: " I 
am the bread of life ; He that cometh to Me shall 
never hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall 
never thirst." 

" He that believeth on Me, hath everlasting 
life." 

" I am the bread of life, which came down 
from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he 



HAS GOD REVEALED HIMSELF? 73 

shall live forever ; and the bread that I shall 
give is my flesh, which I will give for the life o^ 
the world." 

" He that believeth on Me as the Scriptures 
hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of 
living water." 

" I am the light of the world." 

" If a man keep my word, he shall never see 
death." 

" Before Abraham was, I am." 

" Therefore doth my Father love me, because 
I lay down my life, that I may take it again. 
No one taketh it from me, but I lay it down of 
myself. I have power to lay it down, and I 
have power to take it again." 

" I am the good shepherd. My sheep hear 
my voice, and I know them, and they follow me ; 
and I give unto them eternal life; and they 
shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck 
them out of my hand. I and my Father are 
one." 

" For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and 
quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth 
whom He will." 

" For the Father judge th no man, but hath 
committed all judgment unto the Son." 

" That all men should honor the Son, even 
as they honor the Father, He that honoreth 
not the Son honoreth not the Father which hath 
sent Him." 



74 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

" Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is 
coming and now is when the dead shall hear the 
voice of the Son of God; and they that hear 
shall live." 

" Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that 
heareth my word, and believeth on Him that 
sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not 
come into condemnation; but is passed from 
death unto life." 

" For as the Father hath life in Himself ; so 
hath He given to the Son to have life in Him- 
self ; 

" And hath given Him authority to execute 
judgment also, because He is the Son of Man." 

" Marvel not at this ; for the hour is coming, 
in which all that are in the graves shall hear 
his voice. 

" And shall come forth ; they that have done 
good, unto the resurrection of life; and they 
that have done evil, unto the resurrection of 
condemnation." 

What wonderful words are these? He has 
life in Himself. Not delegated, but His own. 
He gives eternal life. He is eternal. He lays 
down His life. He takes it again. He came 
down from Heaven. He gives His life for the 
world. He is the Judge of all men. He claims 
honor equal with the Father. He shall raise 
the dead. He shall empty the graves of th§ 
world. 



HAS GOD REVEALED HIMSELF? 75 

This is the Lord Jesus Christ's account of 
Himself. Shall we account Him competent to 
give account of Himself? Who should know 
if not He? Are you not the best authority on 
who you are, on how much you are worth? 
And is not Christ the best authority on who He 
was, and what He was? 

Can a man be everywhere at once? But 
Christ says : " Where two or three are gath- 
ered together in My name, there am I in the 
midst of them." Is this a characteristic of 
man or of God? 

He says : " Lo, I am with you always, even 
unto the end of the world." Is this the work of 
man, or of God? 

He takes divine honors unto Himself. He 
says He is Lord of men, and of angels, and of 
demons. Is that the power of man, or of God? 
And if it is so, then He is the Son of God. 
This is the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ 
concerning Himself. 

May we turn to the testimony of others : 

The Bible says that all things were made by 
Him. Who is able to create? Man or God? 

The Bible says that at the name of Jesus, 
every knee shall bow. Before whom? A man? 

The Bible says, " Christ, the same j-esterday, 
today and forever." Is that characteristic of 
humanity, or of Deity? 

May we turn to the testimony of His works : 



76 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

He says to the man with the withered hand, 
" Stretch forth thine hand." He feeds seven 
thousand people with five loaves of bread. He 
is asleep in a ship at sea. A storm comes rush- 
ing down the mountain pass ; and the waves of 
the lake are lashed into foam, and He awakes, 
and His word is " Peace, be still," and lo, the 
winds and the waves answer, and obey. Was it 
a man that smoothed the heaving floor of Gali- 
lee? Go to Mount Vernon. Stand before the 
marble that keeps the dust of Washington, and 
command the dead to come forth. But there 
is a dead girl in Capernaum. Her brow is 
marble; her lips are ashen; her frame is dust. 
But Christ comes. And she wakes to life again, 
and the ashes of the tomb glow once more with 
the pulsations of life. Who called her back.^ 
Who brought her forth from the grave? Was 
it a man? Or was it Christ the Lord? 

And yet again. We read in the Book: 
" We must all stand before the judgment seat 
of Christ." For the day of the present shall 
pass. And the day of the future will come. 
And the bending skies will divide. And the 
hosts of heaven will appear. And the earth 
and the sea shall give up their dead. And the 
tomb shall return its sacred dust. And in the 
midst shall be raised a throne. And on the 
throne shall be placed a Book. It is the Lamb's 
Book of Life. Who shall ascend that throne? 



HAS GOD REVEALED HIMSELF? 77 

Who shall open that Book? Shall you? Shall 
I? " The Lion of the tribe of Judah, He hath 
prevailed." " The Lamb of God, He was found 
worthy." " And before Him shall be gathered 
all nations. And He shall separate them one 
from another." Who is this before whose face 
the earth and the heaven shall flee away ? Who 
is this who is able to say, " Behold I make all 
things new." It is the Lord from heaven. It 
is the Christ of the ages '^Who liveth, and was 
dead, and behold He is alive forevermore." 

And in the unplummeted depths of His Di- 
vinity shall we not trust? And shall not our 
faith take wing on the words of the Christian's 
song of triumph: 

** Jesus^ thy blood and righteousness 
My beauty are^ my glorious dress, 
Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed, 
With joy shall I lift up my head." 

3. And what of the God whom this Christ un- 
covers to us? Will you hear the wondrous 
story? It is the marvel of the ages. He is 
a sufferi/ng God. He is full of compassion. 
His tender mercies are over all His works. 
He is rich in mercy. He is a sin-pardoning 
God. " Come, saith Jehovah, and let us 
reason together; though your sins be as 
scarlet they shall be white as snow ; and though 
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." 



78 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

" Return unto me, for I have redeemed thee." 
" Like as a Father pitieth his children, so the 
Lord pitieth them that fear Him." " Come 
unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest." " And whosoever 
Cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." 
" Thy sins and thine iniquities will I remember 
no more." " As one whom his mother comfort- 
eth, so will I comfort you." " Fear thou not, 
for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I 
am thy God. I will strengthen thee. Yea, I 
will help thee. Yea, I will uphold thee with the 
right hand of my righteousness." " For by 
grace are ye saved through faith. And that 
not of yourselves. It is the gift of God." 
" For God so loved the world that He gave 
His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
in Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life." What more would we?' Can we not 
come to this God? Is not this the God to 
whom we can go with our broken heart, and 
our sin-sick soul, and our crushed spirit? 

For He has sought us. And He has re- 
deemed us. And He has washed us from our 
sins in His own blood. And He has made us 
sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. 
And He has given us the victory over death. 
And He has made us to triumph over the grave. 
" Who is this that cometh from Edom, with 



HAS GOD REVEALED HIMSELF? 79 

dyed garments from Bozrah? This that is 
glorious in His apparel, travelling in the great- 
ness of His strength? I that speak in right- 
eousness, mighty to save,'' 



CHAPTER VII 

THE TESTIMONY OE THE 
CHRISTIAN 

" We know we have passed from death unto life." 

I. CONSCIOUSNESS THE ORIGIN AND THE 
FOUNDATION OF OUR KNOWLEDGE 

Here is the grist the philosopher grinds. 
From this material he makes his meal, which 
same he offers to you as his philosophy. Here 
is the stuff that the scientist analyzes, and about 
which he offers to you his theories. The testi- 
mony of consciousness is absolutely trust- 
worthy. To deny this is to undermine knowl- 
edge. Tliis is simply saying that if ten men see 
a tree fall, we must accept their statement. To 
say that they might have supposed that they 
saw a tree fall but that that is no reason why 
anyone should believe a tree did fall, is to under- 
mine the basis of knowledge. This is admitted 
by all. The common man admits it; the phi- 
losopher admits it ; the scientist admits it. The 
common man believes what he sees for himself. 

He believes what he hears for himself. But so 

80 



THE TESTIMONY 81 

too does the scientist. This is exactly what he 
does do. And this is why he asks us to believe 
him. But the philosopher does precisely the 
same thing. He points out to us that con- 
sciousness always affirms the exact truth. Upon 
this foundation he builds his system, and be- 
cause of this he makes his appeal that we accept 
him. 

Turning to the Scriptures we find the same 
thing to be true. The Apostles ask us to ac- 
cept their statements because they were eye- 
witnesses of what they record. 

II. CONSCIOUSNESS BRINGS ALL KINDS OF 
KNOWLEDGE 

Consciousness brings to us all kinds of knowl- 
edge, and of all kinds of things, about which we 
know anything. But consciousness itself is one 
power. Just as the eye is one, whether we look 
upon the velvet carpet of the green fields, or 
upon the many-shaded colorings of the flowers, 
or upon the gorgeous splendors of the sunset, 
or upon the hundreds of tiny creatures that 
live and move in a single drop of water, or upon 
the countless hosts of the starry heavens, or 
upon the beasts of the field, or upon the birds 
of the air, or upon the fish of the sea — the 
objects may be varied and numberless, but the 
power of visual perception is one. Just as the 



82 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

sense of taste is one whether we taste apples, or 
pumpkins, or potatoes, or pies, or pine-apples, 
or castor-oil — the objects may be many, the 
sense of taste is one. 

So is the power me call consciousness one and 
indivisible. All that we know through sight, 
or through hearing, or through smelling or 
through touching, are different aspects of the 
material world. The differences lie in them, not 
in the power through which they are known. 
In order to know new properties of matter we 
need only a way of presenting them to the mind, 
such as the telescope or the microscope, not a 
new mental endowment. For consciousness is 
the capacity of knowing things in themselves. 
And this capacity is directed toward, and fixed 
upon, anything and everything that is pre- 
sented to it. The objects of attention may 
change, but that which knows them is one and 
the same. 

III. WE ARE IN THE PRESENCE OF MYSTERY, 
DEEP AND IMPENETRABLE 

May we pause to say that we are here in the 
presence of mystery, deep and impenetrable, but 
no more so than many another mystery that 
surrounds us. " Gravitation is the power by 
which every particle of matter attracts every 
other particle, however far separated these may 



THE TESTIMONY 83 

be ; a power of tremendous force, holding worlds 
such as ours in their orbits, as they move round 
the sun, millions of miles distant, and control- 
ling the movements of the unnumbered worlds 
of space; worlds greater far than ours, and 
separated from one another by distances of 
which the mind can form no thought. Who 
can tell what this power is, or explain the how, 
or can think it possible be.vond the knowledge 
of the fact? This is as deep a mystery as is 
consciousness. The same truth appears in 
regard to all other things. Who can under- 
stand cohesion, the force which binds together 
the atoms of matter, giving tensile strength ; 
that of a rod, or bar of steel, almost passes be- 
lief. Or the expansive force of steam? Who 
knows what electricity is, or magnetism? What 
possible conception can anyone have of how 
seeds and plants grow? The most advanced 
scientist is as ignorant as an untaught child. 
He may state the successive steps in the life 
process, but to him the how is utterly unknown. 
No one can explain the vital union between soul 
and body in man. Such facts as these we know 
as facts, but that is all — they arise from within 
the mystery from which they refuse to come 
forth. And so with consciousness. It is that 
inexplicable, mysterious power of the soul by 
which we know the things which are present to 



84 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

IV. CONSCIOUSNESS THE SAME NO MATTER 
WHAT ITS NAME 

May we pause to say this also. The con- 
sciousness is the same no matter what name you 
call it by. You may give it any name you wish. 
It does not alter the knowledge. Christian 
Science says that all is mind. It says that a 
razor, for example, is simply an idea — that it 
is not a piece of matter at all. And you at- 
tempt to shave the superfluous hair off^ your 
face, or pare a corn from your toe ; and your 
hand slips ; and you cut a gash in your flesh. 
What is it? It is an experience in the realm of 
the ideal. You have an ideal razor, cutting an 
ideal gash in your ideal face or foot, and rais- 
ing an ideal flow of blood, from an ideal wound, 
and causing an ideal pain, and necessitating 
the application of an ideal piece of absorbent 
cotton, or some ideal alcohol, or other ideal 
cauterizing agency, which produces an ideal 
stoppage of the ideal flow of ideal blood, and 
the ideal cessation of the ideal pain, and you 
are aff^orded ideal relief, and have ideal satis- 
faction and ideal peace of mind. But all this 
does not in the least alter the testimony of 
consciousness. The facts presented to it are 
the same, call them by whatever names you 
will. They are facts of consciousness. They 
lie in the realm of experience. It is as idle 



THE TESTIMONY 85 

to battle against them as it would be to at- 
tempt to oppose the turn of the tide. 

V. EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF THE TESTIMONY 
OF THE CHRISTIAN 

This brings us face to face with the fact of 
the evidential value of the testimony of the 
Christian. For it is a fact of consciousness. 
Our knowledge of it does not come through the 
senses. It is neither tasted, nor seen, nor 
touched, nor heard. But it comes to us through 
experience. And to deny the reality of all 
knowledge save of that which we see, or hear, 
or taste, or smell, or touch, is to deny the 
reality of the affections, and of the virtues, and 
of the principles that constitute the nobler 
mind. But it is false to deny them, because we 
experience them. They come into our con- 
sciousness. And to deny the facts of conscious- 
ness is to deny the trustworthiness of human 
knowledge. And this is just what we have seen 
that neither science nor philosophy does. 
Rather both build all their systems upon this. 
But both science and philosophy have confined 
themselves too closely to the knowledge coming 
through the senses, and have taken too little 
account of the knowledge coming to us through 
experience. 

The testimony of the Christian lies in the 
realm of experience. It is a fact of conscious- 



86 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

ness. We know it as we know that we love our 
country. We know it as we know that we love 
our children. We know it as we know that we 
love our mothers. We know it as we know that 
we love the beauty of the green fields, and the 
flowery dells, and the rippling brooks. We 
know it as we know that we love beautiful music, 
and towering mountains, and glowing sunset- 
skies, and silent, shining stars. We know it as 
we know we love the roses and the lilies. We 
know it as we know we love to sing. We know 
it as we know we love the charmed circle we call 
our home. 

Does the patriot know.? Ask Nathan Hale 
on the gallows. Ask Arnold von Winklereid 
at the pass of Sempach. Ask Kosciusko on the 
walls of Warsaw. Ask the Camerons at Cul- 
loden. Ask Washington at Valley Forge. 
Ask Cromwell at Dunbar. Ask Bruce at Ban- 
nockburn. Ask Regulus at Carthage. 

Does the Christian know? Ask John Brad- 
ford on the scaffold. Ask Margaret of Perth 
in the waters of the Solway. Ask Fortuna 
and Felicia in the arena of the Coliseum. Ask 
Bunyan in Bedford jail. Ask Tyndale in the 
dungeon. Ask Coligny in the streets of Paris. 
Ask Luther in the Wartburg. 

What is the testimony of the Christian? 
May we state it in the words of another : " God 
is the Father, everlasting in His love. Love was 



THE TESTIMONY 87 

the end for which He made the world, for which 
He made every human soul. His glory is to 
diffuse happiness, to fill up the silent places of 
the universe with voices that speak out of glad 
hearts. Because He made man for love. He 
cannot bear to see man lost. Rather than see 
the loss, He will suffer sacrifice. In the place 
we call hell, love as really is as in the place 
we call heaven, though in the one place it is the 
complacency of pleasure in the holy and the 
happy which seems like the brightness of ever- 
lasting sunshine or the glad music of waves that 
break in perennial laughter, but in the other it 
is the compassion of pity for the bad and the 
miserable which seems like a face shaded with 
everlasting regret, or the muffled weeping of a 
sorrow too deep to be heard. That grand 
thought of a God, who is eternal Father, all the 
more regal and sovereign that He is absolutely 
Father, can never fail to touch the heart of 
the man who understands it, be he savage or 
sage." Told by Jesus, it is this : " For God 
so loved the world that He gave His only be- 
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
might not perish but might have everlasting 
life." Told by Paul it is this : " The Spirit 
himself beareth witness with our spirit that we 
are children of God ; and if children, then heirs ; 
heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so 
be that we suffer with him, that we may be also 



88 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

glorified together." " If God be for us, who 
can be against us ? " 

Told by countless thousands of saved men 
for nineteen hundred years it is this : Jesus 
Christ is my Saviour. Every man when he 
looks himself squarely in the face knows himself 
to be bad. Every man, conscious of the moral 
obliquity of his own nature, is also conscious 
of his own inability to transform himself into 
a righteous man, a justified man, a guiltless 
man. Can a man forgive himself? Can a man 
re-create himself? Can a man regenerate him- 
self? Can a man give spiritual birth to his 
own spirit? "That which is crooked cannot 
be made straight, and that which is wanting 
cannot be numbered." " Sin in the soul is a 
fact against which the reason battles in vain." 

This is the testimony of the Christian: 
Jesus Christ has saved my soul. " This poor 
man cried and the Lord heard him, and de- 
livered him out of all his troubles." " I live, 
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." It is Christ 
living, and reigning, and ruling and loving in a 
new-born, Christ-born human soul. Not that 
all mysteries are solved, but the difficulties have 
lost their significance. For love has lighted 
the path, and the fires of love have burned the 
barriers away. Did you never see a human love 
that baffled all your reason? "For the heart 
has reasons of its own, that the reason knows 



THE TESTIMONY 89 

not of." And the Christian cannot explain the 
new-found life that has come to be his posses- 
sion, and his experience, no more than he can 
explain why the morning answers the kiss of 
the sunshine, and withdraws from the embrace 
of the night. But he has what is better than 
the explanation — he has the life itself. No 
babe ever lay on a mother's breast that could 
explain the mysteries of a mother's love. But 
no babe was ever folded to a mother's heart that 
did not know a mother's love. 

And this is the testimony of the Christian. 
A new man has arisen within him. A sense of 
moral power has come over him. The heights 
of moral probity tower far above him. But 
they are no longer Impossible. " I can do all 
things through Christ " — this is his battle cry. 
For Christ has become the center round which 
all his life revolves. And this is the communion 
of saints. A million other men are revolving 
around the same Saviour, as the planets re- 
volve about the sun. 

For the testimony of the Christian is the 
conscious experience of Christ in the soul. It 
is " Christ in us the hope of glory." The ques- 
tion of the fact of Christianity is transferred to 
the realm of the practical. It is no longer a 
question of something that was, or something 
that may be, or something that shall be; it is 
a matter of dealing with a something that is. 



90 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

The new pragmatic philosophy says the ulti- 
mate question for every man is : " What shall 
I do to be saved?" The testimony of the 
Christian is : " If any man be in Christy he is a 
new creation ; old things are passed away ; be- 
hold all things are become new." " If any man 
will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine." 
" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
shalt be saved." A blind man came to Jesus. 
Christ said to him : " Let me anoint your eyes 
with clay, and you go wash in the pool of Si- 
loam." " And he went and washed and came 
seeing." And this was his testimony: "One 
thing I know: that whereas I was blind, now I 
see." " And he worshipped Him." This is the 
testimony of the Christian. 

*' Rock of Ages^ cleft for me^ 
Let me hide myself in thee, 
Let the water, and the blood. 
From thy riven side which flowed. 
Be of sin the double cure, 
Save me from its guilt and power.*' 



CHAPTER VIII 
IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD? 

" All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." 

This is ever a question of deepest interest to 
man. For the Bible message is a wonderful 
story, on a theme sublime, treating matters of 
vital importance to every individual, and to the 
entire race. 

And if its record may be trusted, then man 
may know who created him, and why ; what shall 
be his destiny, and whither he is bound ; for here 
life and death, and immortality, and human re- 
sponsibility to Deity are set before us. 

Is the Bible the Word of God.? Has God 
spoken here.'^ Has Deity uncovered reality 
here.? If so, then you and I may learn, and 
know, and live. 

I. THE MEANING OF INSPIRATION 

jNIay we ask first : What do we mean by in- 
spiration ? 

And in answer we may say, first of all, we 
do not mean revelation. Revelation is divine 
communication. Inspiration is divine direc- 
tion. 

91 



92 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

Neither is inspiration illumination. For the 
mind of every child of God is enlightened when 
the Holy Spirit takes up His abode there. But 
every child of God is not inspired to write the 
oracles of the Most High. 

Neither is it human genius. Human genius 
is natural. Inspiration, as applied to the writ- 
ing of the Scriptures, is supernatural. It is an 
enduement of power, coming upon the authors 
of the books of the Bible, enabling them to write 
the Word of God. We discern the difference 
when we try to think of a human genius prefac- 
ing his writings with the words : " Thus saith 
the Lord." 

We do not know how the Holy Spirit moved 
upon men, but we know the results. Neither 
do we know how the spirit recreates a bad man, 
and makes him a good man, but we see the 
effects. 

Neither do we mean that the men who wrote 
the Scriptures were always and everywhere in- 
spired, infallible, inerrant men. They were not. 
They made mistakes. They fell into errors of 
conduct. But we do mean that when they 
wrote the Scriptures they were moved upon and 
guided by the Spirit of God. But the mean- 
ing of inspiration is this : According to the 
Scriptures themselves, inspiration is an extraor- 
dinary, divine agency upon teachers, while giv- 
ing instruction, by which they were taught what 



THE WORD OF GOD 93 

and how they should write. This Is not unto 
the obHteration of personality. As Dr. Henry 
B. Smith says : " God speaks through the per- 
sonality as well as through the lips of His 
messengers." Wayland Hoyt says : '' Inspi- 
ration is not a mechanical, crass, bald compul- 
sion of the sacred writers, but rather a dynamic^ 
divine influence over their freely acting facul- 
ties." What may be called the interior process 
of the Spirit's action upon the minds of the 
speakers was of course inscrutable, even to 
themselves. That they were conscious, how- 
ever, of such an influence, is manifest from the 
authority with which they put forth their 
words : yet, when they sat down to write, the 
divine and the human elements in their mental 
action were perfectly harmonious and insepara- 
ble. 

As to the outward method, the Spirit acted 
on the minds of inspired men in a variety of 
ways, sometimes by audible words, sometimes by 
direct inward suggestions, sometimes by out- 
ward, visible signs, sometimes by visions and 
dreams. 

Inspiration was further concerned, also, in 
giving to the sacred writers divine direction. 
Here too, there was diversity of mode. For 
sometimes men were moved of the Spirit to write 
of things which otherwise they could not know, 
as in prophecy. Sometimes they were guided 



94 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

to write a summary record of history. Some- 
times they were moved to write divine teaching 
through philosophy, or reason, or experience. 
Sometimes they were influenced to write para- 
bles. Sometimes to record visions. 

II. THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES 

How do we know the Scriptures are inspired.? 

The answer covers a wide range. For to 
prove that the Scriptures are inspired we 
might, with propriety, refer to the excellence 
of the doctrines, precepts, and promises, and 
other instructions which they contain ; to the 
simplicity and majesty of their style; to the 
agreement of the diff*erent parts, and the scope 
of the whole; especially to the discovery they 
make of man's fallen and ruined estate, and the 
way of salvation through a Redeemer; together 
with their power to enlighten and sanctify the 
heart, and the accompanying witness of the 
Spirit in believers. 

But there is another ground of appeal. The 
Saviour applied the old law that life is known 
by what it brings forth. He said : " A good 
tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a 
corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." And 
again : " Do men gather grapes of thorns, or 
figs of thistles ? " 

Now, according to this principle, if the Bible 
is a fraud and a falsehood, if it is a cheat and 



THE WORD OF GOD d6 

a lie, if it is an imposition and a humbug — 
then we know what manner of returns to look 
for wherever it is placed among the people. 
We will look for degeneration, and disorder, 
and for fanaticism, and decline, for immorality, 
and intrigue, and dishonor. 

But when we search for the facts, what do we 
find? Just the opposite. Wherever the Bible 
goes, there a new manhood appears. Is it 
among the red Indians? Idlers and murderers 
become workmen and gentlemen. Is it among 
the Hottentots? Beastly men become manly 
men. Is it in the islands of the sea? Canni- 
bals become Christians. Is it among degener- 
ate Americans? The saloon and the gambling 
hall are deserted, and the home and the church 
are chosen. " By their fruits ye shall know 
them." And judged by these fruits, what is the 
Bible? 

There is a wider field where the same princi- 
ple may be applied. There are other cherished 
and ancient writings. There are other reli- 
gions. There is Confucianism, and Hinduism, 
and Islamism. But what are the fruits? 
Modern India is the fruit of the Veda. Mod- 
ern China is the answer to the writings of Con- 
fucius. And modern Turkey is the fruit borne 
by the Koran. 

There is another ground of appeal. The 
Bible answers human need. Here are the an- 



96 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

swers to the ever-recurring, insistent, peremp- 
tory demands of the human soul. Who am I? 
What am I? Who placed me here? What is 
the meaning? Whither am I going? These 
are the things we want to know. What is 
death? "If a man die, shall he live again?" 
And these the Bible answers. It " brings life 
and immortality to light." It discovers God. 
It relates man. It measures the grave. It 
defies death. It plants the rose of immortality 
upon the tomb. 

There is another ground of appeal. For 
this is ever the most vital issue of man — how 
to get back to God. "O, that I knew where I 
might find Him " is the deep and insistent wail 
of the stricken, wandering soul. And this hun- 
ger of the heart the Bible fills. Here is slaked 
this thirst of the soul. " Ho, every one that 
thirsteth, come ye to the waters. And he that 
hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Yea, 
come, buy wine and milk, for ye have sold your- 
selves for naught, and ye shall be redeemed 
without money, and without price." It is 
grandly true. For while other books pause 
with the needs of the body, the Bible discovers 
the salvation of the soul. The Bible tells a 
man how he may be saved. Is this the work of 
man? Can man, himself lost, guide his fellow 
home? This is the light of revelation, stream- 
ing upon the human pathway, shed by a hand 



THE WORD OF GOD 97 

divine. God is here. " Return unto me, for I 
have redeemed thee." " Fear thou not for / 
am with thee. Be not dismayed, for / am thy 
God. I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help 
thee ; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand 
of my righteousness." 

There is another ground of appeal. The 
men themselves who wrote these books give the 
most direct and the most conclusive evidence 
that the Scriptures are divinely inspired. 

In the first place, these men sufficiently au- 
thenticated their divine commission. They es- 
tablished their right to be believed. Samuel 
and Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Paul, and Amos, 
and John are the names of men whose integrity 
cannot be challenged. Their work was not 
done in a corner. Moses and Joshua and Dan- 
iel are names that call for confidence in their 
utterances. Where they go on record most of 
us would scarcely care to contravene their 
statements. 

Now they have gone on record in this very 
matter of their own inspiration. They are be- 
fore the world in the position of teachers of di- 
vine truth. What have they to say as to the 
source of their authority.? What is their tes- 
timony as to their own infallibility? For 
whatever their testimony is, these men have a 
right to call for acceptance of the same. And 
what is the record.? 



98 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

Does it read. Thus saith Moses — Thus 
saith Isaiah — Thus saith John — Thus saith 
Paul? Or does it read, ^^ Thus saith the 
Lord?" 

Now, I demand a verdict. What shall we 
do with the testimony? Nay, rather, if Jeho- 
vah hath spoken, in your world and mine, shall 
it not be He who will call for an answer? 

Again, I raise the question — if we do not 
receive the testimony of these men in this mat- 
ter, why should we accept it on anything else? 
If they have borne false witness here, why 
should they be accepted elsewhere? Were they 
not as competent to judge here as elsewhere? 
And were they not as much disposed to speak 
the truth here as elsewhere? 

Here is their divine commission. Here is 
their divine authority. Here is their plain tes- 
timony. To reject it is to throw them, and 
their writings, and their religion out of court. 

III. A STUDY OF THE TESTIMONY 

Dr. James H. Brookes is authority for the 
statement that the phrase or its equivalent, 
" Thus saith the Lord," occurs in the Old Tes- 
tament two thousand times. That covers 
rather a large portion of the Old Testament. 
What are we going to do about it.? 

Look, for a moment, at the manner in which 
the utterances of the Old Testament writers are 



THE WORD OF GOD 99 

introduced into the New Testament. Here is 
an illustration. Matthew 1 : 22, " Now all this 
was done that it might be fulfilled which was 
spoken by the Lord through the prophet." 

Again, look for a moment, at the manner of 
the regard of Christ and His apostles for the 
Old Testament. Christ said He came " not to 
destroy, but to fulfill, the law and the proph- 
ets." Matt. 5:17. Again He said, "The 
Scripture cannot be broken." Again in Mat- 
thew 22: 31-32 Christ quotes from the Old Tes- 
tament thus : " Now as touching the resur- 
rection of the dead, have ye not read that which 
was spoken unto you by God, saying, ' I am 
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, 
and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of 
the dead but of the living.' " 

Again, look at the direct teaching of the 
apostles about the Old Testament. Peter says : 
" No prophecy ever came by the will of man, 
but men spake from God, being moved by the 
Holy Spirit." II Pet. 1 : 21. And Paul says : 
" All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." 
II Tim. 3:16. 

Elsewhere passages are cited from Scripture 
as the words of the Holy Spirit. In the Epis- 
tle to the Hebrews, 3:7, we read: "Where- 
fore, as the Holy Ghost saith, ' Today, if ye 
will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.' " 
And in the Book of Acts, 4 : 24, " And when 



100 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

they heard that they lifted up their voice to 
God with one accord, and said, ' Lord, thou art 
God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and 
the sea, and all that in them is; who, by the 
mouth of thy servant David, hast said: Why 
did the heathen rage, and the people imagine a 
vain thing? ' " 

Finally, may we study especially the direct 
testimony of Jesus Christ: 

" The Lord Jesus Christ possessed the spirt 
of wisdom without measure, and came to bear 
witness to the truth." His works proved that 
he was what he declared himself to be, — the 
Messiah, the great Prophet, the infallible 
teacher. The faith which rests on him rests 
on a rock. 

As soon, then, as we learn how he regarded 
the Scriptures we have reached the end of our 
inquiries. His word is truth. 

Now every one who carefully attends to the 
four gospels will find that Christ everywhere 
spoke of that collection of writings called the 
Scriptures as the " Word of God." He re- 
garded the whole of it in this light. He 
treated the Scripture, and every part of it, as 
infallibly true, and as clothed with divine au- 
thority. He thus distinguished it from every 
mere human production. 

Nothing written by men can be entitled to 
the respect which Christ showed to the Scrip- 



THE WORD OF GOD 101 

tures. This, to all Christians, is direct and 
incontrovertible evidence of the divine origin of 
the Scriptures. Of itself, and of itself alone, 
it is perfect and wholly conclusive testimony. 

For this is the meaning. The Old Testa- 
ment is authenticated by the New Testament. 
But in the New Testament we have the Incar- 
nate Word. And the Incarnate Word is God. 
" In the beginning was the Word, and the 
Word was with God, and the Word was God." 
The inspiration of the Old Testament is au- 
thenticated by the Son of God. 

Turning to the inspiration of the New Testa- 
ment. What is the direct testimony of Jesus 
Christ there .'^ 

We find that He promised the inspiration of 
the Holy Spirit to guide the apostles. " The 
Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour 
what ye ought to say." Luke 12 : 12. " For 
it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost." 
Mark 13:11. "Which things also we speak 
not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but 
which the Holy Ghost teacheth." I Cor. 2 : 13. 

Now, if the Apostles were preserved against 
error in their oral utterances, how much more 
may we suppose them to have been inspired in 
writing what was to share the faith of the 
church for all time? 

Peter sets his seal upon the writings of Paul 
as Scripture, thus : " In which are some 



10^ DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

things hard to be understood, which they that 
are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do 
also the other Scriptures, unto their own de- 
struction." II Peter 3 : 17. 

What, then, is our conclusion? 

The Bible is the word of God. It is inspired. 
Therefore it is infallible. The Holy Spirit 
directed the sacred writers. They wrote His 
Word. Their individuality was not destroyed. 
Their liberty was not abridged. As teachers 
they were infallible. As Christians they were 
not perfect. And this is because inspiration is 
one thing. And sanctification is another thing. 

The Bible is a human book. 

The Bible is a divine book. 

The Bible had human authors. 

The Bible had a divine author. 

Moses wrote history. David wrote psalms. 
Paul wrote letters. But had these men not 
been guided their writings might contain much 
that was valuable, but they would not be an 
infallible guide to God. But the Scriptures 
have another author, and that author is the 
Spirit of God. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE LIVING WORD AND LIFE 
ETERNAL 

I. THE LAW OF OBEDIENCE IS THE LAW 
OF LIFE 

Viewed from the bottom of an ascending 
scale, the law of obedience is the law of life. 
Unless the clay obeys the law of the plant, and 
is taken up into it, and assimilated by it, and 
organized into its substance, it must remain 
forever on the lower level. Unless the mind of 
the child obeys the law of education, it will re- 
main forever uninformed, undeveloped, uncon- 
trolled. Unless the moral nature heeds the im- 
perial mandate of conscience, confusion and 
degeneration will hold riot in the garden of the 
soul. 

II. JESUS CHRIST THE LIFE OF GOD IN 
THE WORLD OF MEN 

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the life of 
God, coming into the world of men. His mis- 
sion is the lifting up of the lives of men from 
the lower levels of time and sin and death to 

the higher levels of righteousness and immor- 

1Q3 



104 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

tality. He accomplishes this through redemp- 
tion, regeneration, and glorification. This He 
does, by virtue of what He is. For He is : 
The Creator of the ends of the earth, and all 
things under the sun. " All things were made 
by Him, and without Him was not anything 
made that was made." " In Him was life, and 
the life was the light of men." 

God, the Father, announced Him : " This is 
my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." 

He announced, concerning himself : " He 
that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." 
" Believe me, that I am in the Father, and the 
Father in me." " He that receiveth me, re- 
ceiveth him that sent me." 

III. THE ESTATE OF MAN, APART FROM 
JESUS, THE CHRIST, THE SAVIOUR 

Made in the image of the righteous and holy 
God ; made for virtue, and holiness, and beauty, 
and immortality ; " made but little lower than 
the angels " ; behold, and wonder how he hath 
fallen. 

We look abroad upon this world and call it 
the land of the living, but it might much more 
appropriately be called the land of the dying. 
For while nature breaks forth in perennial 
beauty with the returning of the seasons, the 
blight of death has fallen upon the life of man. 
Not only is the body wrenched from the soul, 



THE LIVING WORD 105 

and driven back to dust, and dissolution and 
decay within the hungry caverns of the tomb, 
but sin has entered the moral man, and the 
skeleton of death shows its ghastly form in the 
realms of the spirit ; and cruelty and lust, and 
ignorance, and vice, and despair disport them- 
selves, and make a havoc of hell in the human 
heart. 

And this world of ours which might have been 
a, paradise and an Eden where the wings of an- 
gels waked the whispers of a waiting heaven, 
and the spirit of Jehovah clothed the forms of 
men with the garments of immortality, has be- 
come a vast charnel house, a boundless burying 
ground, a gigantic cemetery. 

IV. HOW SHALL THE CHILDREN OF MEN BE 
DELIVERED? 

First, the call of life is ever from the higher 
to the lower. The grass, and the trees, and 
the flowers are forever calling to the material 
world beneath them, and taking them up and 
transforming them into their own kingdom. 
And the call comes from the members of the 
animal kingdom to the world of vegetable life 
to be taken up, and wrought into higher 
forms. 

And in man the mind calls to the body to be- 
come its servant and the soul calls upon the 
mind to perform and answer its desires. And 



106 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

the spirit directs and controls the life of the 
soul. 

The life in no one kingdom is able to project 
itself into the kingdom above it. The initial 
action must come from above. That which is 
above must reach down and gather up, and as- 
similate, and transform. 

Second^ the lower must conform to the 
higher. That which is beneath must become 
obedient to that which is above. If transfor- 
mation is to be accomplished, the life which is 
on the lower level must yield itself up to the 
conditions of existence on the higher level. 
And this law of obedience is universal through- 
out animate existence. 

But when we come to humanity a new element 
appears. There is another kind of life here. 
Consciousness enters upon the scene. Man 
knows himself. Choice becomes the condition 
of relationship. Man chooses his course of 
conduct. He looks upon himself, and is con- 
scious of the capacity to direct himself. Al- 
ternatives lie before him. For life above him 
reaches out beckoning hands inviting him up- 
ward. And life beneath him lays hold of him 
with clinging hands striving to drag him down. 

" For God so loved the world that He gave 
his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
in him should not perish but have everlasting 
life." This is the kingdom that cometh down 



THE LIVING WORD 107 

from above. This is man's deliverance. This 
is salvation. This is the marvelous mission of 
the Christ. To lay hold of men dead in tres- 
passes and in sins, and to lift them up, and to 
ransom them from the power of sin and of 
death, and to deliver them from the grave, and 
to transform them into His own image, and to 
endue them with eternal life. 

V. THE THINGS CHARACTERISTIC OF THE 
SCRIPTURES 

This is the Christ of the Scriptures, And 
this Christ, mho hrvrigs eternal life to men, it is 
the mission of the Scriptures forever to un- 
cover, forever to reveal, forever to discover to 
men. 

What things are characteristic of these 
Scriptures? What marks do they hear of their 
high mission? What impress is upon them? 

For here the story is told, to men dead in 
trespasses and in sins, of the way that leads to 
life eternal. And this is the greatest message 
in all the world. Beside this story, all other 
stories pale and vanish. Compared with this 
thing, all other things are insignificant. Meas- 
ured by the interest bound up in this, all other 
interests pass out of existence. 

What is this Word ? And what are the qual- 
ities that keep it forever the perennial pathway 
o'er which the feet of the children of men ap- 



108 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

proach the Christ, the Fountain of Eternal 
Life? 

1. Chief among its characteristics stands its 
theme — the greatest that has ever entered hu- 
man thought. For here upon the sacred page 
God and Christ and man appear. Here is set 
forth our life and its meaning. Here is discov- 
ered the cause of death, our terrible affliction. 
Here we are told of judgment to come. Here 
redemption, and pardon, and a new life in 
Christ Jesus are brought to us. Who is suffi- 
cient to declare unto us the truth, and the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth, about such 
things ? 

We talk of progress and advancement in the 
secular sciences, as though the most inspiring 
thing that could come into a man's life were the 
knowledge of the composition of the mud under 
his feet. And this the more so, when we are re- 
freshingly reminded, though where the assur- 
ance of it lies we fail to see, that the vaunted 
knowledge of today will be the refuse of to- 
morrow. 

How different from the revelation written 
here of the truth of God as it is in Jesus Christ? 
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 
truth is here. And the righteousness, and the 
revelation, and the redemption that reach us, 
and ransom us today, are not relegated to the 
refuse heap tomorrow. Rather, it is forever 



THE LIVING WORD 109 

true : " I am Jehovah ; I change not. There- 
fore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." 

2. Its attitude toward sinful man. For the 
Bible draws no flattering picture of man and 
his world. Upon its page he is not portrayed, 
in his present fallen condition, as a being of 
noble instincts and desires, a being of high as- 
pirations and exalted ideals. 

Neither does the Bible describe the career of 
the race as the brave and persistent and suc- 
cessful struggle against an untoward environ-- 
ment and adverse circumstances. Rather the 
portrayal is of disobedience and lawlessness and 
wantonness — departure from God, and the 
choice of the downward road. 

Neither does the Bible represent man as hav- 
ing entered the world through no fault of his 
own, under conditions hard to be borne, and as 
having gradually wrought out a better lot, 
through the exercise of his own inherent pow- 
ers. His achievements, his civilization, his 
cities, his society, receive no lauding here. 

But instead, here is meted out to man the se- 
verest condemnation. His conduct is filled 
with unrighteousness. His heart is filled with 
covetousness. His thought is envy and de- 
ceit and guile. His imagination is vile. His 
devisings are mischief. His wisdom is selfish- 
ness and foolishness. Insolent, proud, vaunt- 
ing and disobedient, he is hateful to God. 



110 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

" There is none righteous — no, not one." 
" Dead in trespasses and in sins." " The chil- 
dren of disobedience." The " children of 
wrath "^ — these are the Bible descriptions of 
man. 

Neither does the Bible predict the ultimate 
triumph of civilization. Education and cul- 
ture shall not avail. 

The Bible sets itself steadfastly against 
man's selfishness, and cruelty, and blood-thirsti- 
ness — though man himself dignifies it with the 
name of patriotism. War is born of lust. 
Cruelty is the offspring of greed. Vanity, in- 
dulgence, falsehood, pride these are declared 

to be the characteristics of man. 

How inconsistent and altogether astonishing 
that men should be insistent that man draw this 
picture of himself. And yet how consistent the 
desire on the part of fallen men to eliminate the 
hand divine from the drawing of this picture. 
For if the finger of God has traced these lines, 
then the story they tell is true. 

3. And hence it is that men have hated the 
Bible as perhaps nothing else under the sun 
has been hated by the heart of man. For here 
its own hideousness is uncovered. And here its 
own guilt is laid under condemnation. 

And this, too, has added fuel to the flame of 
fierce hate that has ever consumed the heart of 
man against the Word of God. The Bible 



THE LIVING WORD 111 

takes the place of authority. Its word goes 
forth as a mandate. It speaks not by permis- 
sion, but in command. It does not advise; it 
directs. And its imperial mandate goes forth 
to all ranks and conditions of men. The high 
and the low, the exalted and the humble, the 
master and the slave, the sovereign and the 
peasant — there is no class with God — and 
the Bible speaks one message. 

And this word of authority is hateful to man. 
He meets it nowhere else. Banish this, and he 
is free. Annihilate this source of authority, 
and man will know no authority but that which 
is self-created and self-imposed. He will be his 
own and only grand master. And how this 
sentiment is abroad in the world today. We 
hear it on every side. And how sympathetic is 
the reception it always receives. The Bible has 
forged the chains that have held man in cruel 
bondage. The Bible has been the source of a 
narrow thology that has cramped and cruelly 
hampered man's free development. The time 
of his emancipation draweth nigh. The days 
of his bondage are over. Freed from the bond- 
age imposed by the Bible, how he will arise in 
majesty, and how grandly he will acquit him- 
self! He is not fallen. The end of his unre- 
generate existence is not destruction. 

The only deliverance of which he stands in 
need is himself and the strength of his own 



112 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

hand. How unwelcome then is this Book, that 
uncovers human guilt and condemns human 
lust, and writes the doom of destruction after 
human sin. 

4. And hence it is that persecution has been 
heaped upon the Bible by the hand of man as 
upon no other book. Force, violence, the flame 
and the fagot, the executioner, bans, edicts, the 
death penalty — all have been exhausted 
against it. 

Men have denied its authority; have im- 
pugned its veracity and even its morality ; have 
ridiculed its claims upon the conscience; have 
sought its destruction by every known means 
— and all to no avail. All have miserably 
failed. Against it Voltaire directed his ven- 
omed pen. Upon it fell the shafts of his ha- 
tred. Unable to dethrone it in his own day, he 
had recourse to prophecy. In the nineteenth 
century the Bible would become extinct. So, 
too, did Thomas Paine. Give his book fifty 
years, and the Bible would go out of print. 
Thrice fifty years have multiplied. Gone are 
the boaster and his book, both well-nigh for- 
gotten. 

More recently Darwin sent forth his book, 
and the acclamation of delight echoed round 
the world. Haeckel called it the " Anti-Gene- 
sis," and declared that by a single stroke Dar- 
win had annihilated the dogma of Creation. 



THE LIVING WORD 113 

Here at last was a sword that thrust the Bible 
through its very heart. Man was free at last. 
He had uncovered his noble ancestry. And re- 
joicing in the honors hereby heaped upon him, 
he shouted with delight to find himself free from 
the fetters of a holy and a righteous and a re- 
deeming God. 

And now a half-century has well-nigh spent 
its course, and science has been busy correct- 
ing her blunders, and what things have been 
proven are found to form no weapon against 
the Scriptures, but rather to corroborate and 
sustain. Not one jot and not one tittle of the 
statements of the Bible have been moved, while 
science has been most busy keeping her feet 
upon the shifting sands of her own conclusions. 

5. Another characteristic of this Book is its 
discernment of the heart of man. " For the 
Word of God is quick and powerful, and 
sharper than a two-edged sword — piercing 
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, 
of joints and marrow — and is a discerner of 
the thoughts and intents of the human heart." 

We go to other books to learn of other men. 

We go to the Bible to learn of ourselves. 

We read the ballads of the sweet songster of 
Scotland, and we see the heart of Burns uncov- 
ered there. 

We read the Psalms of David, and lo, we dis- 
cover our own heart. 



114 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

Turning these pages the conviction comes 
home, this Book knows all about me. 

" For there is not a word in mine heart, but 
lo. Thou knowest it altogether." 

" Thou understandest my thought afar off." 
" Thou knowest my down-sitting, and mine up- 
rising." Here we discover our real selves. 
Here our motives are labelled. Here the hun- 
ger of the soul is appeased. Here we find what 
we are, and what we may become. 

6. And hence it is that it is at home in the 
hands of every man — all languages, all peo- 
ples, all nations. It was produced by the Jews, 
and the Jews have a country no more. Them- 
selves persecuted unto the ends of the earth, 
their Book has entered into the place of su- 
premacy in every nation attaining civilization. 
Born of the Orient, it civilizes the Occident. 
It speaks from the printed page of four hun- 
dred languages. Born of one peculiar people, 
it becomes the property and the possession of all 
peoples, and the intimate and prized companion 
and treasure of all nations, however radically 
different, wherever found beneath the sun. 

VI. THE STORY TOLD BY THE SCRIPTURES 

Now what is the story they tell? What are 
they written about? What do men -find in 
these pages? 



THE LIVING WORD 115 

" This is the record, that God hath given to 
us eternal life. And this life is in his Son,'^ 

This is the marvelous mission of the Son of 
Man — to give eternal life to a world of lost 
men. " I am come that they might have life." 
This is his own announcement of himself. 

This brings us face to face with the profound 
mystery of generation. Here science stops. 
Philosophy pauses. The Bible says, God. 

But science can, and does say this, in the 
words of Lord Kelvin : " Inanimate matter 
cannot become living except under the influence 
of matter already living." " This is a fact in 
science which seems to me as well ascertained as 
the law of gravitation." 

And again : " I am ready to accept, as an 
article of faith in science, valid for all time and 
in all space, that life is produced by life, and 
only by life." 

And Huxley left this record before he died: 
" The present state of knowledge furnishes us 
with no link between the living and the not- 
living." 

And Tyndall said : " Every attempt made 
in our day to generate life independent of an- 
tecedent life has utterly broken down." 

The Bible says : " In the beginning, God." 

Again, in the first chapter of the Book of 
Genesis the first law of biology is enunciated 
nine times in the words, " after his kind." 



116 DOUBTERS AND THEIR DOUBTS 

Thus a chasm, deep and wide, is put between 
species by the Creator. 

A few years ago the theory of organic evo- 
lution was put forward as a '^ scientific " ex- 
planation of the origin of species. And the 
wise and the learned accepted; but they forgot 
to find the facts first. Of course, this was very 
unscientific; but we were supposed to overlook 
this very strange inconsistency. And they 
were so sure they would find them all. Besides, 
here was the dart that would pierce the Bible 
at its very heart. But when they sought the 
facts, lo, they could not be found. And they 
never have been found. No, not a single one. 

No living thing of one species has ever been 
born of ancestors of another species. Neither 
is there a particle of proof that such a thing 
ever took place. But, on the other hand, 
countless myriads of generations are forever 
occurring in accordance with the first chapter 
of the book of Genesis. The fruit of the vine is 
not found on the mulberry tree, nor lambs in the 
serpent's nest. Oaks bear acorns, and acorns 
persist in growing oaks instead of cornstalks. 

I call you to witness then that men m a lost 
estate and under sentence of death can only be 
delivered by one who hath life and one who will 
bestow that life upon them. Only spirit can 
give birth to spirit. " That which is born of 
the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the 



THE LIVING WORD 117 

spirit is spirit." " Marvel not that I say unto 
thee, ye must be born again." " For the wages 
of sin is death ; but the free gift of God is eter- 
nal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord." 

Here, then, upon the sacred page is recorded 
the marvelous mission of the Son of God. To 
a world of dying men He " hath brought life 
and immortality to light." What more would 
we.'^ Shall we turn to the plans and machina- 
tions of men.f^ Men are very ingenious, but 
none have essayed the regeneration of the soul. 
None have come forward with the conquest of 
death. None have overcome the grave. 

" What else availeth, if these remain? 
'Twill profit thee nothings but fearful the cost 
To gain the whole worlds and thy soul should be 
lost/' 

The need of man is not morality, but life. 
It is not that death should be clothed in respect- 
able garments, but that a man may be born 
again from above and never die. Not an up- 
lift of what we are, but an enduement of some- 
thing more than we are. This is the offer of 
the Christ : " I will give unto them eternal 
life." He, and He alone, has said: " I am the 
resurrection and the life. He that believeth 
on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. 
And whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall 
never die.'' 



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